Official Fanfiction University OFUATLA
by Karen Elaine DuLay
Summary: The characters of the Avatar world are getting really annoyed at all the bad fics you're making-especially the romance ones! Join them at the Official Fanfiction University of Avatar: The Last Airbender, and learn just WHY Zutara could never be!
1. Of Bad Fanfictions and Songfics

**Hi! Guess what? CAMILLA SANDMAN APPROVED ME TO DO THIS! I'm also requesting that if you know of any really, really bad fanfictions of this 'verse out there, you'll tell me so I can familiarize myself with them more. Telling me any stereotypes would also help a lot. ^_^ Danke!**

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A large group was gathered around a table in the Jasmine Dragon, Ba Sing Se's finest tea shop. Everybody was finding there was someone there they didn't like, although the sentiments were mostly directed at Ozai, Zhao, Azula, and Zuko. The rest of Team Avatar was defending Zuko as best they could, but Zuko's father, sister, and much-hated acquaintance (technically enemy, but they were on the same side, before Zhao tried to have Zuko killed) were getting a lot of anger directed their way.

Finally, one person stood up, and tried to call for silence. She waited a minute, then rolled her eyes and pulled out a fan. "EVERYBODY SHUT UP!" Suki roared. Most people fell relatively quiet, though Sokka insisted on poking Azula in the head with the tip of his (thankfully sheathed) sword. A glare from Suki, as well as the deliberate unfurling of her fan, made him stop. Amazing, what a dangerous metal sound can persuade people to do.

"Thank you, my dear." Pakku nodded to her, and she closed the fan. "Now, returning to business: I may assume we all know why we are here?"

"Bad fanfiction!" Sokka yelled disgustedly. Various noises of nausea, anger, and hatred could be heard from everyone else around the table.

"Very good, Sokka. You do have a gift for stating the blindingly obvious." Pakku rolled his eyes. "Now, we have been given several suggestions on how to deal with this influx of horrid writing. Suki, would you please read the list?"

"Of course, sir." Suki stood, picking up a piece of paper from the table before her. If you hadn't guessed by now, Pakku was officially in charge of the meeting, with Suki as his assistant. "Our contacts at the PPC have provided us with this list. '1. Help the overworked staff of the PPC recruit more members so they can deal with this rise in bad fanfiction.'"

"No way!"

"That's boring!"

"Where are we supposed to find new recruits for them anyways? And I'm not giving them Bosco!"

"Okay, I'm assuming we can forget about that option." Suki sighed. "Then, 2, we can 'Kill all the fanfiction writers.'"

"I like this one." Azula grinned.

"That goes against everything I believe in!" Aang protested. "We can't do that!" Azula gave him a dirty look, which the Avatar summarily ignored.

"The majority of non-canon pairing fics are Katara and Zuko." Suki informed him sweetly. Aang began to literally steam with rage (seriously, he's a Firebender, they can do that! It comes from their mouth, of course, not their ears, but it's still steam!). Zuko blanched, and leaned as far away from Katara as he could, wondering why he'd decided to sit next to her at all. On his other side, Mai began to play with a throwing knife, while on Katara's other side, Aang was gripping his staff so tightly it was threatening to splinter.

"Sadly, is anonymous." Pakku sighed. "And we can't pose as fanfiction writers to gain their trust so they will reveal their identities to us. That would take too long, and I don't know about some people, but I'd rather not spend the rest of my days thinking up silly stories about us so I can deceive young, impressionable girls into thinking I'm a teenager like them so they'll agree to meet me, all just so we can shove a knife through their hearts. If they even _have _hearts."

"Plus you'd be arrested for being a creeper, if not for the murder part!" Toph added, lazily picking her nose.

"Thank you for that lovely mental image of my step-grandfather, Toph." Sokka muttered, ever sarcastic. Toph merely grinned and flicked her boogie at his face (or at least, where she thought his face was. Turned out she missed, and hit Combustion Man, who merely growled. His restraining order against the children had been temporarily toned down so he could actually attend this most important of meetings, but he was having a hard time of it, what with being forbidden from attacking any of them and all.

"There's one other option!" Suki's hand strayed to her fan, which she had set down on the table in order to pick up the papers. Everyone looked to her expectantly. "And, 3: 'Start an Official Fanfiction University to educate your fangirls. The PPC will allow you temporary access to its databases to find offenders, and you will then educate them in a learning establishment of your choice on the ins and outs of canon. Be warned; while there will be plenty of opportunities to torment fangirls, there will also be plenty of opportunities for said fangirls to attempt to attack you. Thus, the PPC recommends you find some canonical version of small, dangerous animals to protect yourselves with and punish the students should they act out of line/attempt to glomp/tackle/rape any of the characters."

For five full minutes, there was dead silence. Miracle of miracles, it wasn't broken by a stupid question or obnoxiously loud outburst from someone.

"…I think we should do it."

Okay. Maybe it was a stupid _comment_. But there's a difference, I swear. Author's honor.

At the sound of Aang's suggestion, everyone started talking at once. Mostly shooting him down with all the stupid ways it could go wrong. There would be fangirls glomping at every chance they got, endless hours of work finding a suitable site, more hours of thinking up, outlining, planning, and finally actually _creating_ a curriculum…and nobody wanted to think about how they would manage the teaching process itself!

"But I don't want people to die." Aang looked at the table sadly. Azula and Ozai snorted. Zuko gave the two of them a dirty look, but sighed.

"Sometimes people just deserve to die, Aang." He pointed out. "Even if you don't want them to."

"Too bad." Aang stood up, fully resolved. "We're starting an Official Fanfiction University."

In the PPC, one agent looked at her iPhone's screen, and broke out in a disturbingly gleeful smile. She sent a quick response, then stowed it in the pocket of her black leather coat (which, by the way, was stolen from a Matrix Mary Sue that was luckily just her size).

Agent Karen Elaine DuLay had just been assigned to the newly-created Official Fanfiction University of Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Lupe Hernandez was putting the finishing touches on her latest oneshot, a romance songfic about how Zuko and Katara realized they were madly in love. That canon clearly showed Aang and Katara getting into a romantic relationship at the end of the series obviously didn't concern her any. Nor did the fact that Mai and Zuko had been more-or-less together throughout the entire third season. And the fact that she had chosen Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" for the song only served to give any reader with half a brain a horrible, horrible migraine.

Before you ask, yes, she had indeed seen the series. A few episodes from each season. Her favorites are "The Waterbending Scroll," "Crossroads of Destiny," and "The Southern Raiders." Each contained Zuko and Katara, and each could be read as romantic tension between the two.

Lupe saved the document, then opened up on her Windows browser. She logged in under her penname—Twinkle Goldfire—and uploaded the document to her user profile. New Story Accept Guidelines (after just ignoring everything on the guidelines themselves) Type: Normal Category, Avatar: The Last Airbender Title: Bad Romance Summary: Katara and Zuko romance songfic, R/R, lotsa fluff Rated M (she giggled deviously at that one) Language, English (despite being Hispanic, she couldn't speak a lick of Spanish) Genre, Romance World, Cartoon Characters, Zuko and Katara pick document Submit—

"STOP RIGHT THERE!" A voice rang out. Lupe started, then jumped up from her seat at her desk to whirl around and see…

Jet, Smellerbee, Longshot, Pipsqueak, and The Duke.

At least, she recognized Jet, and knew the others on sight from the episode she'd seen of him. It wasn't one of her favorites—no "Zuzu" (as she called him, despite the fact that he hated that name and clearly said so in the season two episode "The Train"), and Katara was all focused on Jet, not Zuko.

Jet. Who was staring at her. With swords drawn and a look of disgust on his face. That Jet.

"If you proceed to click, we will be forced to take severe actions to prevent it." Jet warned her. "And it will probably involve pain." Lupe slowly brought her hands up in the universal sign of "Hey, I'm unarmed, please don't kill me!" while trying to wrap her mind around the shock of having five strange boys randomly infest her room.

Smellerbee strode over to her desk, shoved her and her rolling office chair out of the way, then pulled up the story. "It's a Zutara one, Jet!" He called over his shoulder, then shuddered. "And a bad one at that."

"Right. That gives us all we need." Jet lowered his swords, then reached into his shirt to pull out a roll of paper. He unfurled it, and began to read. " 'Lupe Gabriella Hernandez, you are officially charged with malicious destruction of canon, writing bad songfics about an anti-canon pairing, and actually thinking Katara and Zuko could be attracted to each other in any way. Your punishment, as decided by the Head of Student Affairs and Punishment Agent Karen Elaine DuLay of the Official Fanfiction University of Avatar: The Last Airbender, is to attend OFUATLA for one year. You have no choice about this matter, as refusal will result in the Freedom Fighters cutting off your head to be stuffed and added to Miss DuLay's collection. Please fill out the attached form, and have a nice day.' "

Lupe finally found her voice. "But…it's not a bad songfic…"

"I think I'll need therapy from Iroh again when we get back, Jet." Smellerbee said grimly, eyeing the final words of the story. "I don't need to know certain things about Zuko OR Katara. Much less about both of them."

"Hey, she has candy hidden in her sock drawer!" The Duke exclaimed, rifling through Lupe's things. "Oh…okay, didn't need to see that picture…" If Lupe could have moved, she would have winced. Seemed that small kid with the oversized helmet had found her secret stash of Sexy Zuko pictures, not all of which had him in clothing.

"Err…anyways, you are required to fill out this form." Jet took a scroll out of his jacket (which must have some sort of hidden pocket on the inside) and held it out to Lupe. "Smellerbee's the only one of us who bothered learning to read English, so ask her for help if you have any questions."

Ignoring the clear indicator of Smellerbee's true gender, Lupe took the scroll and unrolled it slowly. She took in the questions, printed in black ink—or, more accurately, written in black ink, most likely with a calligraphy brush and by someone who had just learned to write in English.

"Are…are you people for real?" She gasped, turning to Jet. He nodded, and motioned for her to fill out the form. Lupe wasted no time in grabbing a random writing device (which turned out to be a mechanical pencil) and scribbling down her answers.

Application Form:

_[[WARNING—IF YOU DEVIATE FROM THE CANON IN ANY WAY REGARDING BENDING, REINVENTING THE CANON FOR YOUR OWN PURPOSES, OR ADDING TO CANON IN WAYS THAT DO NOT FIT WITH THE 'VERSE, I WILL DISREGARD YOUR CHOICES AND CONSIDER YOU A PRIME SUBJECT FOR MESSING WITH]]_

Basics

**Name: **Lupe Gabriella Hernandez

**Age: **19

**Gender:** Female

**Physical Description: **Black hair to shoulders, blue eyes, Hispanic

**Bending Abilities: **Fire Fire Fire! Pleeeease!

**Primary Weaponry (if you're a Bender, this is a weapon you use to augment your Bending—but please, feel free to leave this spot blank. Non-Benders, however, are required to have at least a puny dagger to defend themselves with, if only because most of the faculty wants you people dead):** Ooh! Can I have broadswords like Zuko uses? He's so sexy with them ;P

**Secondary Weaponry (only fill out if you're not a Bender): **Uhh can I have fans like the Kyoshi warriors use? I didn't see their first appearance but I caught Azula and Mai and Ty Lee pretending to be them and the "Previously on—Avatar" thing that showed them looked really really epic!

**Nation (if you chose a Bending ability, you are by default from that Nation): **Ooh can I be a Firebender from the Earth Kingdom? :D

**If you would like to bring a pet from home (note the use of the singular), please give name and details (especially species name) here: **Nah, I don't really have a pet

Canon Knowledge

**How much of the series have you watched? **A couple episodes from each season

**How much independent knowledge do you have Asian, Pacific, and Meso-American cultures, past and present? **Uhh…what's Meso-American?

**How much knowledge do you have of the Avatar world (meaning, do you make pretty much everything up, or can you describe the architectural styles of each Nation with ease)? **Dunno. They have chocolate and cell phones, right? Nobody can live without those.

**Please list the character names of those who were in the Jasmine Dragon Tea Shop at the very end of the series, in order of age (if two people are the same age, order their names alphabetically. And no cheating and looking it up online, either. You're doing it from memory):**

What's the Jasmine Dragon? And I didn't watch the last episode.

**What are the pairings, according to the canon? **ZUTARA!

Your Work

**What pairings do you support? **ZUTARA ZUTARA ZUTARA

**Have you written any slash fiction (as in male/male or female/female)? **Well, I did write that Aang/Sokka thing…

**Why do you write Avatar: TLA fanfiction? **Because it has Zuko and he's hot :P

**Who is your favorite character? OMG ZUZU!**

**Least favorite character? **Mai. Ugh, she's such a depressed emo

**What genre of stories do you usually write for Avatar: TLA? **Zutara Romance!

**Have you ever, or do you currently, write a Mary Sue/Gary Stu/godmoding character? **What're those? I have an OC named Twinkle Goldfire I write sometimes to pair with Zuko

**What pairings do you usually write? **ZUTARA! And sometimes Zuko and Twinkle

**What is the typical rating for your stories (K, K+, T, M, etc.)? **M

**What are your least favorite pairings? **ZuMai and KatAang, ugh, they're stupid

**Have you ever written an AU version of the canon storyline? **Nope

**Have you written a future fic where the characters have children? **Yus! Zuko and Katara's daughter is adooooorable! :D

**If so, have you named their children with combinations of their parents' names (ex: Sokka&Toph have Soph and Tokka)? **Yup! She's Zutara!

Additional Information

**What is your opinion of the War? **Ugh it was stupid I'm glad Zuko didn't do anything for it

**What is your opinion of the Fire Nation in general?** They're a bunch of idiots who wanna take over the world, except for Zuko

**Are you a fangirl of one of the characters? **ZUKO!

**If so, who and why? **ZUKO CUZ HE'S HOT!

**How do you feel about how Zuko's appearance reflected his personality throughout the series?** He got hotter when he ditched the ponytail I mean seriously he was hot with it but then he got even hotter when he ditched it I don't get why he'd do it in the first place

**Tell me what you understand about the art of Bending. **You move your body and earth, or water, or air, or fire moves with it

**What kind of clothing do you like wearing? **Cute tees and baggy pants!

**What kind of personality would you say you have? **Ooh I'm totally funny and smart and cute and all I'm exactly the kind of girl Zuko would fall in love with!

Questionnaire

_This is a standard questionnaire to determine just how much you actually know about the canon. Please answer to the best of your ability, and do not cheat. Or we will find you. Please realize, we do not expect you to answer everything correctly, but if you can, the author will respect your knowledge (and thus your character) enough not to subject them to torture and verbal abuse on a daily basis in the story. Maybe. She will certainly respect your knowledge of canon enough not to rag on you for whatever you've written, unless said writing contains blatant disregard of the canon you have proven you know, in which case she will merely ensure your character gets chewed out by one or more of the faculty._

**What is the Avatar cycle? Uhh…dunno**

**What happened to the Air Nomads at the start of the War? **They got killed off by those jerks in the Fire Nation

**Who was the Fire Lord that began the War? **Ozai

**Who was that Fire Lord's best friend when they were both young?** Iroh

**Where are the Water Tribes located? **Someplace wet

**Where on the Earth Kingdom map is Ba Sing Se located? **South

**In Season Two, Episode Twelve, The Serpent's Pass, what mistake did the creators accidentally put on Sokka's map? **Uhh I didn't see that episode

**After his defection to Team Avatar, did Zuko's outfit close in the back, front, or to one side? If to one side, which side? Was there a belt? If so, what color was it? What style was it? **Closed in the front, gold sash for a belt (I know my Zuzu ;D )

**How many appearances does the Cabbage Merchant have? How many in only Season One? Season Two? What is his trademark line? **Uhh who?

**What other name does Iroh consider naming his tea shop, only to remark, "No, that's stupid!" and discard it, in Season Two, Episode Seventeen? **I didn't watch that episode

**What are Professor Zei's last words to Sokka, Aang, and Katara as they flee the Library of Wan Shi Tong, then sinking into the sand forever (only the very last sentence is needed)? **Who's "Professor Zheng"?

**What does the group discover upon escaping the library? **dunno

**What does Sokka proceed to consume that makes him high? **Cactus juice?

**What crazy things does he say/do under the influence of said substance? Only three examples needed. **I dunno

**At the beginning of Season One, Episode Twelve, what are Sokka's first lines? What is the implied humor present in these lines? **Uhh dunno I only paid attention to the Zuko parts

**How many times has Aang gone into the Avatar State on-screen? Disregard dreams. **dunno

**In Season Three, Episode Seventeen, why are the characters mad at their portrayals in the play by the Ember Island Players? Who is the only one to voice enthusiasm at their character's portrayal? **Zuko was all mad cuz it made him look bad, but it's the episode that PROVED him and Katara are meant to be, so I lurv that episode even though Aang kissed Katara!

**Why are the masters Ran and Shaw different from other dragons physically? **Who are Ran and Shaw?

**What is the implied symbolism of the Red and Blue Dragons in Zuko's dream in Season Two, Episode Eighteen? **Totally didn't watch that episode

**What is the name of Toph's hometown? **Uhh dunno

**When Toph and Katara crash the Earth King's party, what do they wear? How is their hair done? Do they wear makeup? They crashed a party? **Woot! Go Katara! Be a rebel!

**How does the Kyoshi Warriors' first appearance differ from all later appearances? **Dunno I only saw them once really but OMG they were soooo epic!

_This is Karen Elaine DuLay, Head of Student Affairs and Punishment. By signing this waiver, you will be agreeing to allow us full control of your diet, everyday clothing, activities, and pretty much life for the next year and a half. Know that by disregarding the requests above, you may well be condemning your character to a painful, flaming death, and we reserve the right to laugh maniacally while doing so. Sign the line below._

X_Lupe Gabriella Hernandez_

_Thanks for your soul. We'll take great care of it. Maybe._

Lupe's eyes glazed over at some point during the questions, but she kept writing until she saw a spot to sign her name. With a nervous gulp, she handed the paper to Jet.

"Thank you." He nodded to her. "You will be transported to the University tonight. Please get some sleep—you'll need it." The other Freedom Fighters followed him as he walked out the door.

Lupe stared after them, then turned off her computer, brushed her teeth, changed into her pajamas, turned off the lights, and went to bed.

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**Enrollment is now open! For the next few chapters, at least: I'll tell you when it's time to stop. Remember, all characters will probably be portrayed as drooling fangirls/fanboys, so if you're offended at my portrayal at you...well, you were warned. Plus, ideas for stuff your character might try to do are also more than welcome ^_^ Let's get this chaos started! Wooooot! Submit applications via PM, please, because if you review it could technically be called a breach of the rules, and let's not get me in trouble, mkay?**


	2. Of Flying Lemurs and an Abyss

**Sooo. Guess what I forgot last chapter? Hehe...I don't own Avatar: The Last Airbender, nor do I own the PPC (referenced multiple times in this fic) or the concept of Fanfiction Universities. I do own my OCs, Lupe Hernandez and Agent Karen Elaine DuLay. But you yourselves own the characters you've submitted! :D**

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Lupe woke up to fall out of bed. "Ow! What the—?" She rubbed her sore head, looking around. When had her room transformed into a metal compartment with bunks? And when had those other people gotten there? And…and…

Why was the floor rocking?

"Nnn…what…?" A girl on a bunk next to Lupe's propped herself up on one arm, rubbing at her eyes blearily. "Oh man…how much sugar did I have last night…?"

"Who are you?" Lupe cried, now sitting against her bunk. "Where are we? What's going on?"

"Ugh…dunno…but I had this really weird dream…the Freedom Fighters burst into my room and made me sign this sheet…" The other girl yawned, then stretched. It was at this point that Lupe realized that she was wearing an outfit extremely similar to the girl's, instead of her usual bedtime tank and sweatpants. "Oh, I'm Meep, by the way. Meep Megdalene."

"I'm Lupe…Lupe Hernandez…" Lupe looked around the room. Other than the bunks, built into the walls itself, there was nothing. No decorations on the wall, just a large metal door with a very obvious locking mechanism that seemed to have no release from the inside. "Where are we?"

"Aaah!" Another girl fell out of her bunk, and straight onto Lupe. "Owowow…sooo sorry…wait, how'd you get into my room?"

"Ooh! Who's room is this, now?" A final girl sat up in her bunk, looking around with interested eyes. She noticed the others in the room, and her eyes lit up. "We-ell now…"

"I think we're locked in!" Lupe panicked. Meep sighed.

"Okay. Names, now." She instructed, then pointed to herself. "I'm Meep Megdalene. That, that's Lupe Hernandez. And you a—WHAT ARE WE WEARING?" Ah, she too had noticed the matching clothing they all wore.

"Umm…shirts, skirts over leggings, jackets? Ooh, armguards. Or are they sleeves?" The last woman to wake up—the one who kept making everything sound suggestive—examined her sleeves with interest. "Oh, I'm Andy. Andy Roseanne. Hey, did you guys get a visit from the Kyoshi Warriors too? At least, I think they're the Kyoshi Warriors…they were wearing clothes. Weird."

Lupe started to get to her feet, looking at the woman who hadn't given her name yet. She seemed to realize the disadvantage the others were at, and quickly introduced herself. "Sofia. Sofia Jayne Owens. Is it just me, or is the floor…rocking?"

There was a pause as everyone realized that yes, the floor was swaying gently beneath them. It was slightly disorienting.

"Um…" Lupe looked at her three bunk-mates, Meep, Sofia, and Andy. What in the world had she gotten into?

"Why are there so many Firebenders?" Sokka grumbled, resting his chin on the railing of the Auditorium's stage-balcony. That had been Toph's idea, making the stage from which they all spoke and addressed the students from a balcony with barbed wire lining the sides and bottom. Everyone had agreed, especially Karen, who was finding the University grounds very much to her liking.

"I still can't believe you turned the Boiling Rock Prison into a school." She said dreamily, stroking a wall lovingly. "How'd you manage it?"

"Well, we figured the cells could easily be converted into rooms by just adding desks." Zuko shrugged. "Then we converted the guard quarters into a heavily-fortified Staff Section, like the PPC suggested. And finally, for classrooms, we took one wing, wrecked it—Toph did most of the work, and she was laughing like a maniac all through—then added in some lecture halls and a few smaller classrooms. Oh, and we turned most of the yard into a survival course field."

"Did you leave the lockdown mechanisms?" Karen turned from the wall to look at all the other characters standing on the balcony. "We'll need them for the enforced curfew."

"Don't worry. We left it in." Mai chuckled, drifting over from her conversation with Ty Lee. She took Zuko's hand and entwined their fingers. "And the coolers. Can't have those Firebenders attacking my prince without punishment—oh, sorry, Fire Lord now." Her and Zuko smiled at each other. Mai kissed Zuko quickly, then left to stop Azula from throwing Hu of the Foggy Swamp Water Tribe off the balcony (something about him not wearing pants).

"Are the lemurs fully trained?" Karen asked, glancing about. About fifty feet below the balcony, and twenty feet in front of it, the seats for the students began (the first row didn't even have a floor, just a huge, dark hole nobody could see the bottom of). Around the hall, large lanterns filled with fire and glowing crystals from the Earth Kingdom cast a mix of red-yellow and green lights, giving an effect not unlike that at a rave, only much more morbid due to the deep shadows cast eerily about. Several levels of rails were hung all about the hall. And on those halls…

Were flying lemurs.

"Yup. Momo's ready to lead the fight against fangirls and misspellings." Aang rubbed his little flying friend's head fondly. "Ang and Moomoo are the best so far. They figured out how to use knives to pin fangirls to walls! Thanks again for the dummy-fangirls, by the way."

"It was most satisfying to beat them all into pulps." Katara added, cracking her knuckles and grinning savagely. Sokka should have inserted his typical sarcastic humor here, but at some point Suki had wandered over, and then the two of them had wandered off to who-knows-where. Nobody really wanted to know, as the reason why was fairly obvious.

"How were the students getting here again?" Karen asked lazily, peering down at the abyss below the balcony. "Oooh…this is really deep…anything living down there?"

"Hm? Oh, we transported the Unagi and the serpent from the Serpent's Pass. They should eat anybody that tries to cross the pit." Zuko gave the chasm a fond look. "Suki's pretty happy about it too—apparently Aang's been able to tame the Unagi so it'll only eat fangirls and elephant koi, not people. He rode it too. Nearly gave Katara a heart attack…"

"Before I made it clear to him that he wouldn't do it again, ever." Katara gave her boyfriend a pointed look. The Avatar, the most powerful Bender and authority in the world, had the good sense to look sheepish and apologetic. You don't mess with your girlfriend. Especially when she doesn't hesitate to pin you to a wall with icicles.

"Weird…I can't see water…" Karen frowned at the depths. "Hey Aang! Where's the water? All I see is darkness."

"Oh, it's a little ways down. Gotta make sure they can't reach the balcony." Aang reassured her. "Here, lemme show you something." He reached into a small pouch hanging on his belt, and took out a fish. Leaning over the edge, he dangled it from his fingers and let out a low whistle. There was a rumbling down below, and he quickly dropped the fish, jerking his body back so no part of him was beyond the safety of the railing.

A huge figure surged up from the abyss, stretching itself to the maximum and just barely reaching the bottom of the balcony, to snatch the fish from midair. Karen made a sound of approval, and started to applaud while everyone else on the balcony yelped in surprise. "Avatar!" the Earth King cried. "Don't do that without warning us first! You scared Bosco!" He wrapped his arms around his beloved bear, who looked up from a meal of salmon to make a low grunting noise. It was almost like he was saying, "I heard my name?"

"Nobody's answered my question yet." Sokka reappeared, an arm slung around Suki's waist. "Why are so many of the students Firebender? There are barely any Waterbenders or Earthbenders! And almost EVERYONE is a Bender! There are, what, two, three normal people? WHAT'S SO SPECIAL ABOUT BENDING, HUH?"

"Maybe we shouldn't have let him handle the registrations…" Suki mused, rubbing one of his arms gently. He gave her a smile, and Aang mimed disgust before Katara put a hand on his shoulder. The Avatar smiled at his girlfriend, and it was Karen's turn to gag.

"So…much…sugar…" She groaned, leaning against the rail. "Urgh…make it…stop…"

"Fire Lord!" A prison guard ran onto the balcony. "The ships are in sight! The students are arriving! What are your orders?"

"Everyone to your posts!" Zuko commanded. "And I told you, follow the new Warden—Karen." The agent grinned in delight at her title, and rubbed her hands together in evil glee.

"This," she declared, "is gonna be a good year. For us."

The door to the room opened with a solid thunk, and the four girls within looked up in surprise. "The ship is docking." A soldier in red armor said gruffly. His appearance tweaked something in Lupe's mind, but she couldn't place it. "Here are some boots to wear. You'll need them. Now get to the deck." And he left, tossing four pairs of boots to the floor.

"I think they're color-coded to match our outfits." Sofia remarked, glancing down at her yellow-and-orange themed outfit. "Plus, I'm fairly sure that pair with '7' on it is mine. That's my size, at least."

"Hey, the red ones look like elf shoes!" Meep exclaimed, picking up a pair that matched her red-and-black outfit. "Dude! Are we gonna visit Santa? Do we get to be elves-for-a-day? That'd be sooo awesome! Can I make a fire truck?"

"Is it just me, or was that guy wearing some really familiar armor?" Sofia wondered, handing Andy a pair of yellow-and-orange boots and giving the last pair, red-and-black, to Lupe. Everyone pulled them on, then Lupe cautiously peeked out into the hallway.

"It looks clear…" She told the others. "Are we going?"

"Do we have a choice?" Sofia shrugged. Andy opened her mouth, probably to make some sort of suggestive comment, but Meep chose that moment clap a hand across the other girl's face, silencing her and gaining her the approval of Lupe and Sofia, who were by now thoroughly sick of Andy's constant stream of suggestive comments. Beyond their room, several long, metal-paneled halls extended, almost a maze, but ladders and staircases here and there allowed them access to other levels. The four wandered until they couldn't tell which way they had come from anymore, until finally Meep discovered a staircase that led outside.

"Oh wow…" Lupe muttered as she reached the top of the staircase.

On a lower deck, almost a pen, nearly a hundred young men and woman, seeming to range from their mid-teens to early twenties, were wandering about. Everyone wore the same style of uniform, stiff jackets over shirts of a lighter material, with armguards or sleeves (she'd have to ask someone what they were later) underneath those, and either skirts with leggings or pants. There seemed to be a sort of color-coding going on, because aside from people in red and black like Lupe and Meep, or orange and yellow like Sofia and Andy (whose eyes had lighted up like it was her birthday upon seeing everyone), there were people in blue and purple or green and yellow. Admittedly, red-and-black and orange-and-yellow seemed to be the most common coloring.

"Hey!" Sofia grabbed the arm of a boy nearby. "What's going on here? And what's your name?"

"Huh? I'm William GP—or that's what I put on the registration." He looked shell-shocked, but was grinning broadly. "Can't you guess? This is gonna be awesome…so awesome…"

"If I could guess, would I have asked you?" Sofia demanded. William GP paused, then shook his head no. He was wearing red-and-black, like Meep and Lupe. Sofia waited for him to answer, but he just grinned at them, so she finally walked off in disgust, Meep and Lupe following. Andy, it seemed, had disappeared into the crowd to flirt.

"Maybe we can see where we're going if we look off the side of the ship?" Lupe suggested, glancing towards the railing on either side of the lower deck. "Think they'll mind if we do? 'They' being the people keeping us here?"

"Sure. Might as well try." Sofia led her two roommates towards the left-hand railing, where a few other students were lounging. A group of three were chatting enthusiastically as one of them, in yellow and orange, stood on the railing. "Hey! You guys! Where are we going?"

"That island over there!" One of the three, a boy in orange and yellow, pointed. "It looks kinda volcanic to me. And slightly familiar, but for the life of me I can't tell where I've seen it before…"

"What're your names?" Sofia asked as her group reached the three by the railings. "I'm Sofia Jayne Owens, and this is Meep Megdalene and Lupe Hernandez."

"That's Lauphen Staar on the railing there." The boy answered, pointing to his friend, who gave an enthusiastic wave that nearly cost her balance. "And this is Allison Allie Doyle. I'm [-]." He pointed to the other girl, in blue and purple, then pointed back to himself. "And I know, it's kinda weird. Not what I put on the form, but whenever I try to say what I put on the form, I just get [-] out."

"Huh? Wait, so…[-]. [-]. I know what you're trying to say, but I can't say it myself!" Meep freaked out. "OH MY GOODNESS THAT IS SOOO COOL!"

"Tell me about it!" [-] grinned. "Anyways, have you guys figured it out yet?"

"Figured what out yet? Where we are? We haven't, if that's what you're asking." Sofia scowled. "And it's been a bit hard getting an answer." There was a slight tremor in the ship, and on an upper deck a crew member approached the railing with what looked like a megaphone.

"Attention, students. We are about to dock at Boiling Rock Island. Please move away from the rails in case, during the process, you accidentally fall overboard. If you do, we will have to waste Spirit Oasis water to bring you back, and we really don't want to save any of your lives. Thank you."

"What does he mean—" Lupe began, to be cut off when the ship jerked to a sudden stop. Lauphen, still standing on the railing, fell backwards towards the water. Allison and [-] both reached to grab her, but couldn't get her in time.

Then, as the everyone who'd seen her fall began to run to the railing to watch her death (because people are just like that), the seawater below reached up and caught her easily, wrapping around the startled, falling girl and raising her up to deposit her safely on the deck. An old man on an upper deck, wearing an odd blue outfit that seemed more than a little familiar to Lupe, walked to the edge of the railing.

"I'd prefer it if you _wouldn't_ get into life-threatening situations before we've even had a go at you." He yelled at the assembled "students." "Now please head to the boarding ramp about to be connected to the ship." There was a loud thunk as a huge metal ramp hit the other side of the ship, nearly taking out Andy and a few boys with her. "All right, get moving. To the trolleys."

Everybody began to shuffle towards the metal ramp, but the first people to reach it hesitated. More seawater shot up, and whipped their behinds so hard they tumbled head-over-heels down the ramp. All those after them quickly followed, hoping not to get the pain of a Water Whip.

"Master Pakku." [-] whispered. Lupe thought the name sounded familiar, but the fear of getting hit with magic water—Waterbending?—had her running too fast down the metal ramp to wonder much at things.

After getting off the dock, everyone was herded towards a series of large metal trolleys, then transported up a huge mountain, over the lip of a huge basin, and into a huge metal building on an island in the middle of a lake. "The Boiling Rock!" Several people, [-] included, whispered amongst themselves. Lupe was thoroughly confused. Everything was so weird…had that old man been Waterbending? And if he had been…that meant…

"Off the trolleys!" A guard shouted as the contraptions landed. Then they were guided into a huge room like the lecture halls at Lupe's college, only bigger, and with a balcony instead of a stage that was lined with barbed wire and had a huge, gaping hole at the bottom.

"Ahh, the victims—er, students—have arrived!" A tall woman in a long, black leather coat, looking like the stereotypical bad guy in a cheesy movie. Her long brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and a pair of sunglasses were nestled on her head, just above her hairline. "Welcome. I am Karen Elaine DuLay, head of Student Affairs and Punishment, and pretty much in charge of this place, second only to our illustrious Headmaster, who you will meet shortly. But, I would like to bid you all welcome to OFUATLA—the Official Fanfiction University of Avatar: The Last Airbender!"

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**Aaand...you'll have to wait for the next chapter to see what happens during the assembly! :D Submit those applications please!**


	3. Of Rules and Broadswords

**Me no own Avatar: The Last Airbender...but Lupe and Karen are mine! Other students belong to you lovely people ^_^ Lovely, lovely people... **

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Karen grinned at the students' reactions to her words. Official Fanfiction University of Avatar: The Last Airbender? What was that? Oh, the poor, poor saps. They would learn soon enough that this was not going to be a huge adventure with the possibility of winning the affection of their Lust Object.

"Well, since you're all clearly grasping that so well, allow me to continue." The Agent pulled a dagger from her sleeve and began to toy with it absently as she spoke. "This institution has been established to teach you all the ins and outs of Avatar: The Last Airbender fanfiction. If you were recruited because you thought this is James Cameron's Avatar, please raise your hand, and the guards will escort you out." A fair number of hands were raised, and several Boiling Rock prison guards ushered those people out. Distant screams were heard as they were thrown down the Plot Hole Home, a huge pit created whenever someone who had been magically transported to the Avatar 'verse in a story suddenly and inexplicably found themselves home.

"Now, I would like to begin by laying down a few ground rules." Karen started to clean her fingernails with the knife—dried blood could be so hard to get out. "First: you may not glomp, attack, molest, rape, or in any way, shape, or form give in to your natural fangirl desires when presented with your Lust Object. Especially if said Lust Object is Zuko." There were loud protests to that, which stopped when Karen tossed a fish over the balcony for the Unagi. "Thank you for being silent and polite following that statement." She rolled her eyes. "Moving on.

"Any attempts to violate the First Rule will be met by an attack of flying lemurs. To demonstrate, I have asked a good friend of mine to enter the room so I may fangirl on her and show you why it's a dangerous activity. Fair One, if you please?"

_Not on your life._ Everybody jumped and looked around, wondering where the voice had come from.

"Aww! C'mon! Pleeeease?" Karen attempted to do puppy-dog eyes, but with no idea which direction to do them to, she quickly gave up. "Look, just this once, then you can go off and do whatever it is you do wherever you like. But please. Just let me show them why fangirling is a bad idea."

_Oh, fine._ The voice seemed grumpy. A light began to shine on the balcony, and coalesced into a vague, humanoid, feminine form.

"MASTER!" Karen cried happily, lunging for the light-being. She didn't get farther than a foot before the flying lemurs that were lining the walls all swarmed her. For a moment, she was blocked from view. Then the lemurs returned to their posts, leaving Karen pinned to the floor. "Ang, Moomoo, you better not have wrecked this coat. I had to trade the guys in the Matrix Mary Sue department fifty Twinkies for it."

_I'm leaving now._ The Fair One informed Karen. _And just because you called me "Master" again, I'm taking this._ She held up the knife Karen had been playing with earlier. Maybe that will teach you.

"No! I will never learn!" Karen screamed to the ceiling as the Fair One vanished. There was a pause—then… "So, can someone remove the knives so I can get up and finish?"

There was a brief pause in the orientation as several guards had to scale the walls up to the balcony to free Karen. ("Why didn't you just go to the stairs? There's a door hidden somewhere down there, isn't there?" "Uhh…we forgot about it…") Then Karen resumed her speech.

"Okay. Second Rule takes directly from the First Rule, but is a little different, so they're two rules." Karen paused, then added thoughtfully, "Though, maybe we should just make it Rule 1.5, since really it's just a variation of the First Rule that some of you fangirls like to violate on a regular basis. I've heard there was a serious problem with it over at the original Fanfiction University…"

"Psst! Karen!" Aang peeked around the corner of the door to the balcony. "You're getting off-track again!"

"Oh! Oh, I am, aren't I?" Karen laughed nervously. "Thank you, Avatar. Well then, let's get back on topic, shall we? Second Rule is…" The Agent blinked, then covered her mouth with her hand and whispered back to Aang. "What was the Second Rule again?"

"Stampedes!" Aang hissed softly, eyeing the fangirls warily. He knew he had several fangirls amongst them…but he didn't know who. Plus, apparently one of them had expressed an interest in "experimenting" on him to determine a scientific reason for Bending…

"Okay! Second Rule: NO stampeding, be it of the staff, random Avatar 'verse characters, or me!" Karen emphasized that last one by pulling another knife out of her sleeve. "Hehe…the Fair One missed this…" Lightly briefly coalesced around the bladed weapon, and then it vanished. "What? NO! I'M SORRY! I'LL NEVER CALL YOU MASTER AGAIN, JUST PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF CAFFEINE, GIVE IT BAAACK!"

"Can we leave now?" A student called. Karen's eyes flashed, and she produced yet another dagger from the small of her back. She proceeded to throw this dagger directly to the left of the student, brushing their ear.

"No." She said flatly. "You're…Miss Ochiern, I believe? Yes? No? If you weren't, you are now. Please pay attention. Also, can you toss that back? No? Very well. Ang, please get me the knife." Before the lemur could move, the dagger shone with light, then vanished. "I'M SORRY MA—FAIR ONE!"

"Rule Three!" Aang called desperately, trying to get Karen back on track.

"Okay…Third Rule: If you should attempt to write fanfiction while here, you will be punished according to the Laws of Poetic Justice laid down by Lord Elrond in his court back at OFUM." Karen relished the thought of what that entailed before continuing. "As an example, I would like to tell you what happened to a good friend of mine when he attempted to write a fanfiction in which a Shadowbender warrior fell in love with Katara."

"You have friends?" Someone yelped in surprise.

"I know where you will be sleeping tonight, Mr. [-]!" Karen called sweetly. "Now! This friend of mine was hauled before the Court. His charges were: tampering with canon to include a completely new kind of Bending, breaking up a canon pairing, godmoding his character in such a way that nobody could beat him, and annoying PPC agents."

"What happened to him?" One of the students yelled.

"An excellent question, Ms. Moretti!" Karen beamed. "He was sentenced to act out the story himself…with the woman who played Katara in 'The Ember Island Players.'" Those who knew what she was talking about shuddered in horror. "Last I heard, he was still muttering to himself in a corner about hope. And trying to bash his brains out on the wall.

"Anyways, Fourth Rule: Students are not allowed into the Staff Section, EVER." Everybody moaned at that one. "Hey, we like to be able to sleep in safety. Though Sokka may just babble about being captured again if you try to kidnap him. In fact…" Karen looked back at the balcony door. "You guys got captured a lot, didn't you?"

"YES." The collective voices of Team Avatar sounded wearily from behind the curtain. At the sound of Zuko's voice, pretty much all of the fangirls sat up straight and leaned forward intently.

"Well, that concludes the Rules." Karen said cheerfully. "Lessee now…oh, this is questions time. Okay, feel free to ask me anything! There's no such thing as a stupid question! There are only questions that will result in me throwing a knife at you for daring to speak! So who's first?" There was silence for a good five minutes…and someone raised a hand. "Ahh…Ms. Carden."

"Umm…Zuko's one of the teachers…right?" She ventured. Every lemur in the room slowly turned to look at her. "I…I just ask because…well…a friend of mine told me stories about OFUM, and the canon characters there all taught classes…so…"

"Oh, that's a valid question." Karen nodded. The lemurs did not look away from the girl, who was starting to squirm in her seat under the pressure. "Everybody, Jessica Carden has just raised an important point of the University. You will be taught by the characters from the series." People began to talk in loud voices, and a group of girls started chanting "Zuzu, Zuzu, Zuzu" over and over again. "Oh dear. Aang?"

A loud, piercing whistle cut through the air, and everyone (including Karen) covered their ears. "Thank you, Avatar." Karen nodded to the curtain. A hand with a blue arrow tattooed on the back poked out, made a thumbs-up sign, and withdrew back beyond the doorway. "Now, returning to the question.

"Yes, your classes will be taught by the cast characters. Each of them will have a guard of lemurs whenever there is a fangirl within fifty feet of them, so there will be no hope of getting to them before the lemurs get to you. And trust me," Karen pulled out a piece of bacon, "the lemurs can smell fangirls." There was a low, creepy chittering amongst the lemurs, and Karen tossed the bacon into the air. Several lemurs darted to grab it at once, and had a brief midair fight before the Unagi darted up and snatched the bacon. "By the way, attempting to bribe the lemurs with bacon will not work. They'll just swarm you looking for more."

"Now, a quick explanation of what to expect in your year." An old man, somewhat on the short side, walked through the curtain. "Hello there! I'm Iroh, for those of you who don't know. I'll be your Assistant Headmaster for the year."

"Who's the Headmaster, then?" Someone asked.

"The scary chick in black, who else!" Another person shouted.

"I'm very sorry, Ms. Somariel, but I am not the Headmaster. Ms. Freeranger, good thinking." Karen and Iroh traded a look, and began to snicker. "The Headmaster is…Momo!" A lemur flew out from beyond the curtain, and rested on Karen's head. "I've been teaching him to throw knives too, so please don't annoy him! Also, we require his handprint…pawprint…footprint…wingprint? Well, whatever it is, we need his approval for all paperwork, especially the Class Trip Permission Forms, so please try not to annoy him too much."

"Can we glomp _him_?" [-] called out hopefully. "He's my favorite character!"

"…" Karen stared at him. "You've just gone on my list of suicidally foolish people. I'd say stupid, but that's a strong word. Also, I'm one of said people, so I'm gonna be nice to myself on this one."

"Hey, where's Appa?" Amy Ochanian piped up.

"He's helping haul equipment in for Azula's torture room." Karen explained. "Which, by the way, will be used for the lemurs to deposit any enthusiastic glompers. And yes, Azula did indeed go insane at the end of the series. This does not mean she can be easily fought off. If anything, it means she's even more dangerous than she was before. Also, if she should start to call you 'dear brother Zuzu,' run."

"You mentioned a field trip?" Someone else called.

"Ah, Meep Megdalene. I did indeed." Karen turned to Iroh. "Would you care to explain, your royal Teaship?"

"I would love to!" Iroh exclaimed, going up to the railing. "All right, students. There will be several class trips throughout the school year, each to a different Nation or area of interest to those who want to write believable fanfiction. These locations include, but may not be limited to, Ba Sing Se, the Northern Water Tribe, the capital of the Fire Nation, a nondescript Earth Kingdom village, and the Great Divide Canyon." He paused, then added, "Camping gear will be needed for travel, as none of you seem to grasp the difficulties that living off the land can have."

"Anyone caught trying to attack a staff member while traveling will have their camping gear taken away, so they can learn just how hard it is to survive being stranded in the woods with nothing." Karen added. "This includes weaponry—which awaits you lot in your rooms, by the way."

"Ah! Thank you for bringing up that topic, Karen." Iroh smiled. "Concerning weaponry and your new Bending abilities. All Benders will be required to report to the Training Area an hour before dawn each day to learn the basics of Bending. Non-Benders—we were quite surprised to get any, really—will report an hour after dawn to join the Benders in learning the uses of their various weapons." Groans issued from the students. "Well, you all seem to write characters who know how to use weapons instinctively…so we're going to show you just how much work mastering them actually requires."

"Weapons training will continue until breakfast." Karen took over flawlessly. "After breakfast, you will be required to attend your classes and do homework. There an entrance to the library in the wing with the classrooms. The knowledge spirit Wan Shi Tong has graciously agreed to allow us to utilize his library, but if you attempt to use the information you gain for what he deems 'evil,' you will be attacked by his Knowledge Seekers, who will also take on the lemurs' guard duties while any staff members are in the library."

"Your timetables and class lists should be in your rooms." Iroh looked thoughtfully at the ceiling. "Blue Spirit…what are you doing?" Everyone looked up to find that the Blue Spirit was, indeed, clinging to the ceiling above them. He tensed, then threw himself at the balcony. Landing with a smooth roll, he then fled beyond the curtain.

"Well, that was random. And you should learn to expect things like that, everyone!" Karen gave the assembled students a Look. "This isn't Harvard or Yale. This is OFUATLA—say it with me, Oh-Foo-Aht-La—and you're here to learn or die. And since Katara can bring people back to life with the Spirit Oasis water, you don't even have that option!"

Momo, still atop Karen's head, chattered in his odd lemur-speech. "Oh, and Headmaster Momo would like to end this assembly by saying that any who enter the Haunted Wing will meet an unfortunate and permanent end." Everyone, including Iroh, stared at Karen. "Okay, fine, there's no Haunted Wing. He just wants leechi nuts. Go to your rooms. You'll know it's yours because there'll be a picture of your head at about face level." She waved a hand, and left the balcony. The students and Iroh stared after her, then began to slowly trickle out of the hall.

Lupe was positive that Agent DuLay was insane. Had she voiced the opinion to Karen herself, she would have received an answer of "Well _duh_. Want a cookie?" Most wisely, however, she chose to keep her opinions to herself.

It seemed the dormitory was a large cell block, with about ten levels and only one entrance at the very bottom. Lupe's room was, naturally, on the sixth floor, between Meep and Sofia's rooms. Somehow, they had gotten hold of her school ID photo, which made her skin look blotchy, and had been taken after a noogie by her best friend messed her hair up considerably.

"I'm a little scared to go in." Meep admitted. "What if there's something horrible in there?"

"I'll go in with you!" Andy suggested, slinking over and trying to wrap an arm around Meep's waist. Meep immediately darted into her room, slamming the door behind her. Andy pouted, then looked over at Sofia and Lupe hopefully. Both followed Meep's example.

Lupe's room was about ten feet by ten feet. One side was mostly dominated by a bed, with drawers built into the lower parts. Next to the door was a desk, piled high with—scrolls? What? Lupe took one and unrolled it, to find it was written in Chinese, or something like Chinese at least. She clumsily re-rolled it and put it back on the desk.

Then something hanging on the wall by her bed caught Lupe's eye. She grinned as she realized a pair of broadswords, like Zuko had used in the series, hung from a hook on the wall. They shone in the light from the lit candle on her desk, beautiful and dangerous.

Maybe there were some good points to this.

"Are the curriculums all ready?" Karen asked in the staff's general purpose room (GPR for short). "Lemurs? You have your knives? Excellent, my beauties. Have some bacon. Okay everybody, this is the first Staff Meeting of Semester One of Year One of the Official Fanfiction University of Avatar: The Last Airbender."

"The schedules are complete." Aang held up a scroll. "Care to take a look?"

"Sorry, but I don't read Chinese." Karen sighed. "I really need to learn, though, if I'm gonna be here. Uh, Zuko, maybe you could teach me…?"

"No." Mai growled, seizing Zuko's hand in a death-grip. Karen winced, and took a sheet of paper from the pile before her, all written in English.

"Well, we just need the Headmaster to sign these proofs of attendance sheets, and the PPC will authorize official licenses to write fanfictions for all graduates." Karen set down the paper. "'Lupe Hernandez'…well, God help that poor soul." She looked around. "Well, classes start tomorrow morning. Best get sleep while we can."

"Can I get some jerkey first?" Sokka suggested. "I'm STARVING!"

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**Oh Sokka. You and your meat. Please review and tell me what you think! :D**


	4. Of Cookies and Early Mornings

**Short chapter is short. But motivation is out the window! Noo! D: Also, don't own Avatar, but wish I did. Wish I did soooo much...**

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A sudden loud bang jerked Lupe awake, and she fell out of bed for the second time in two days. "All Benders report to the training yard for their first day of Bending training!"

Bending training?

Lupe had put Firebending…

Zuko had taught Aang Firebending…

She was out of bed and pulling on her uniform before a bystander could have blinked. Of course, if there had been a bystander, they would been a pervert or a creeper, because Lupe was a girl who, while admittedly fond of ice cream and chocolate, had a somewhat attractive figure and looked younger than she was.

Everyone else was trickling out of their rooms slowly, rubbing their eyes and expressing dissatisfied sentiments with the time. There were a few hourglasses distributed about the dorm area, but Lupe had no idea how to read the symbols on them that indicated time. A few guards were wandering the area, encouraging students to get downstairs and outside for practice. All of them had sadistic grins on their faces, visible under their helmets.

"All Benders to the training yard!" Someone yelled. "Hurry up! Move your feet!" Several guards were Firebenders, and used their power to lash whips of fire at students' feet. Multiple burns were received, as well as orders to see the Healers during breakfast.

"I did _not_ sign up for this!" A young girl, in her early teens, wailed next to Lupe. "I'm here for Zuzu! _Zuzu!_ Not to get up at unholy hours and run around!" Uh-oh—she was a Zuko fangirl too? It was beginning to look like she might have some competition for him…

"Lupe! Hey!" Meep weaved through the crowd to come up between Lupe and the young girl. "Oh, hey you! What's your name?"

"Fyre Elaine." The girl sniffled. It looked like she was catching a cold. "I—I thought I could…maybe…well, it's a university for Avatar…and Zuko's just so hot…"

"You're young for him." Lupe snapped.

"You're old for him!" The girl protested, glaring at Lupe. "What are you, seventeen? That's a whole year older than him! I've got a better chance with him than you!"

"Wh—I'm nineteen, you!" Lupe snarled. She attempted to launch herself at the annoying girl, but Meep caught her by the back of her collar before she could.

"Beware of lemurs!" Meep screamed, pointing up. The students (currently in a short hall that had two huge doors to the outside) all looked up, and saw that all the ledges above their heads were filled with silent, creepily-staring lemurs.

"…oh God."

"G'd m'rn'n…" Karen muttered, rubbing at her eyes sleepily. "'t's t'm f'r cl'ss…"

"Er, maybe I should take over?" Iroh suggested. Karen responded by walking back two steps, collapsing to the ground, and starting to snore. "We never should have set her alarm clock for three a.m…now I know what 'I'm not a morning girl' meant."

"Well, should we start the Bending lessons now?" Pakku put in his usual sarcasm. "Or maybe we should serve everyone tea and tell them stories about the good old days?"

"I'd like ginseng." Piandao said with a straight face. Bumi started to snort-laugh, one of his eyelids twitching madly, as Jeong-Jeong's lips curled up slightly in an amused smile. Pakku slapped his forehead with his hand. Iroh let out a bellowing laugh, then turned to the assembled student population, half of whom were seeming disappointed that Zuko was nowhere to be seen.

"All right everyone, this is your first day of Bending training!" Iroh announced to the group. "You will be taught by a member of the Order of the White Lotus, except for the third of you that are Airbenders, who will be taught by Aang."

"Aangy!" Several girls squealed.

"Where's Zuzu?" A large group off to one side demanded angrily.

"My nephew will not be appearing until it's time for him to teach his class." Iroh replied calmly. "In the meantime, you would do well to pay attention to the matter at hand. The lemurs are ready to swarm if anyone attempts to stampede the Avatar." He pointed to the lemurs, who had relocated to some nearby trees. "Now, Waterbenders with Master Pakku, Earthbenders with King Bumi, Airbenders with Aang when he appears—"

"WAAAAAAAHOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Aang screamed, crash-landing in front of the group of students. He popped up, dusted himself off, and twisted around to give a thumbs-up to Appa, who was circling in the sky anxiously. "Thanks buddy! It works!" Then he turned to Iroh and asked, "Have you introduced me yet?"

"Mm-hm. Please take the Airbenders to wherever you wanted them." Iroh nodded.

"All right! Airbenders, with me!" Aang produced his staff from seemingly nowhere, opened it, and flew off. On the ground, the Airbender students milled about in confusion, then attempted to follow him in the pre-dawn darkness. Several wandered off, only to be attacked by lemurs until they were once more on the right track.

Once the general screaming died down, Bumi and Pakku led their students off to find better environments for their Bending (the training yard had no waterfalls or huge rocks scattered about it, sadly enough, and of course the Airbenders were going to a nearby tower to practice their Bending). Iroh and Jeong-Jeong surveyed the remaining students, mostly fangirls in their teens, and gave identical shark-tooth grins.

"We're going to start with breath control, everyone." Jeong-Jeong instructed. He was in his Order of the White Lotus uniform, as all the other Masters (excepting, obviously, Aang) had been. "Sit down and begin to breathe to my count. One, two…one, two…in, out…STOP LOOKING AROUND FOR ZUKO AND CONCENTRATE!"

"Oh…my…God…" Lupe's eyelids felt like they had lead weights on them. "Thank the saint's that's over…is it time for breakfast yet?"

"Breakfast? It's time for weapons training!" Piandao laughed. "You didn't think we'd give you all sharp, dangerous objects and not at least teach you how to use them without killing yourselves, did you?" He looked around at the silent students. "…Well. In any case, you should have brought your weapons with you this morning, so please take them out and wait for instructions."

"But I didn't bring mine with me!" Lupe cried out in panic. Most of the other students voiced similar sentiments.

"Oh dear. You mean you expect us to have pity on you for being silly, forgetful little fangirls?" Pakku grinned wickedly. "Of course. We'll just postpone the lesson so you lot can go back to your rooms and retrieve the weapons you should have brought in the first place. While we're at it, why don't we just cancel class altogether and let you sleep in?"

"Really?" Someone called.

"No." Pakku frowned. "If you don't have a weapon with you, you'll be joining the barehanded fighting classes."

"Will we be naked for those?" Andy asked eagerly.

"That's it!" Lana Kirk, better known as Freeranger, screamed in anger. She'd found herself rooming next to Andy, whose constant suggestive behavior and odd noises in the night had kept her from sleeping at all. Then, this morning, after being called out at an ungodly hour and having to endure Andy at her side not-so-subtly trying to get her out of her clothing, she had been forced to accompany Piandao and a few other non-Benders on an orientational trip through the woods, both to familiarize them with the facts of their non-Bendership (more sleep time after this morning) and to test just how bad they at walking through woods.

Now Freeranger was ready to murder someone. And if that someone was Andy, so much the better.

She reached into a pouch on her belt, and took out a slightly-glowing red orb. With a cry of rage, she threw it straight at Andy, and hit the woman in the chest. It exploded upon impact, spreading red dust all over her, her clothing, and the ground immediately around her. Andy blinked for a moment…then burst out into tears.

"I'M JUST A NYMPHO WHO DRIVES EVERYONE INSANE WITH MY LEWD BEHAVIOR!" She bawled. Everyone stared at her, then turned to Freeranger in wonder and fear.

"I've been wanting to use those." She said with satisfaction.

"And now they're confiscated." Karen appeared behind her from nowhere, black leather coat billowing dramatically in the wind that appeared from nowhere. She snatched the pouch from Freeranger, and inspected the contents. "You said you knew a little jujitsu, so you should be safe. Sort of." The agent paused to think, then shrugged. "Maybe not."

"I hope those disappear like your knives!" Freeranger shot at Karen. Karen raised an eyebrow—and suddenly, something small, hard, and fast flew past Freeranger's ear.

"My knives may be disappearing…but not my cookies." She held up another one threateningly.


	5. Of Class and Juk

**I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender, or indeed, many of the students.**

**Now, an announcement or several.**

**First, I would like to warn all those who have submitted students that nothing here is being taken seriously. NOTHING. You will be portrayed as drooling fangirls who only came to have a shot at your Lust Object. Everything that can be canon, will be canon. Zutara? Yeah right. If you wanna see that in here, or if you want Tokka, or Hatara (Haru+Katara), sorry, no. Despite being a Tokka shipper myself, I will not portray them as such, due to that NOT being canon.**

**Second, I am still accepting student applications. My student limit is 100, and I have...what, not even 20 currently? Yeah, get those applications in! See above for warning.**

**Finally, please everyone give props to the lovely Caelum Blue, my dear beta, who has been a bigger help than you might think. She also has a character here...who you will know when you see her. ;)**

* * *

Lupe stared at the bowl before her. "What…_is_ this?" She poked at the mushy white contents of the bowl with her spoon, and made a face as it gave a gloopy sound. Was gloopy even a word? On either side of her, William GP and Jessica Carden were giving their food similar suspicious looks.

"It's jook!" Iroh informed her, ladling a sizable glob into the bowl of [-], who was sitting across from Lupe. "My nephew says it's delicious. Taste it! It's almost as good as my tea."

"Huh? You make tea?" Lupe looked up at him. Iroh stared at her for a moment, then shook his head and moved to the Water Tribe table to give Allison Doyle a double serving (as punishment for muttering "tea's nasty," no doubt). The Waterbender gave it one look, turned green, and rushed for the door of the cafeteria. Several other squeamish students followed her.

"Could you read the semester schedule?" William whispered to Meep, who was on his other side. She shook her head miserably. "I don't read Chinese! Practically nobody here does! How are we supposed to know what classes we have to go?"

"Attention, students!" Karen swept dramatically into the cafeteria, though the effect was somewhat ruined by the lemur perched on her head doing a silly dance. "Since most of you obviously don't know how to read Chinese, I'm here to inform you that all students are required to attend Basic Canon in fifteen minutes in the Avatar Hall. And, since you obviously couldn't read the map, that's the huge hall in the south wing with the spiral in it. Did anyone think to bring their campus maps with them? No? Why, I'm so surprised…"

"Is Zuko teaching it?" someone called out.

"Hm? 'It'? I'm afraid I've no idea what you're talking about," Karen replied sweetly. "Could you mean the Hall? Silly thing, you, Halls can't be taught! Oh, you meant the class, didn't you? I'm sorry, but you won't see him until…oh…no, I really can't ruin the surprise!" She giggled as the fangirls started to moan in disappointment. "Anyways, just follow the large blue arrow signs to Avatar Hall for Basic Canon. And yes, I did use a blatant Aang-tattoo reference there. Aren't I funny?"

"You're as funny as a shark," Freeranger, still upset over the loss of her shame-bombs, muttered. A cookie whizzed past her ear and hit a bowl of jook, splattering the substance over several students and making their faces turn a sickly green.

"I'm sure you don't want to know this—which is why I'm telling you—but the staff has all been equipped with your shame bombs, Freeranger," Karen grinned manically. "We're expecting them to be a most useful tool against the fangirls. Look at what they did to Andy, after all!" Several people shuddered—Freeranger sulked and scratched at the floor with her nails. She had declared that she had no nation in her application (the Freeranger walks alone), so the staff had excluded her from sitting at the nation-designated tables and forced her to eat on the floor. ("Well, we can't just give you your own table! That'd be unfair to everyone else!" "Because we so obviously care about everyone else!" "Shut up Karen.")

"Karen! Stop distracting the students and let them finish their breakfasts!" Iroh shouted. Ihro, a flying lemur that had been helping him serve the students, flew in with a kettle of tea in its lower paws. "Oh, the tea is here!"

"Yeuch, tea," someone said, sticking their tongue out. Everyone who had actually WATCHED the series froze, then dove under the tables for cover. Just in case.

It was a wise decision.

_Mental note_, Lupe thought as she brushed some soot off her sleeves. _Iroh likes tea._ Then she looked around at the room she'd just entered. "This is Avatar Hall?" she asked. It was generically Asian, with paintings of dragons and huge animals covering the paper walls. She could vaguely remember having seen a documentary of Asian temples in school once, and supposed this looked pretty authentic. Although the stage lined with razor-wire hadn't been in the documentary. Maybe she'd missed that part.

"Students, please take a seat!" Iroh announced from the stage. "I will inform you of this class's expectations for the semester, tell you how you may pass, and then administer a basic quiz that should give us a baseline for what to expect. Going by the answers several unnamed students gave on the questionnaire included in the registration form, we don't have very high hopes for some of you. Lemurs! Distribute the forms! In the meantime, please welcome Karen Elaine DuLay, who will give an announcement before introducing the teachers to you."

"Welcome, everyone!" Karen swept in dramatically, nibbling on a chocolate chip cookie (the students, who hadn't dared touch the jook_,_ drooled enviously). "First off, I would like to introduce you all to several newly-discovered lemurs that I met after going over the registration forms with Sokka late last night—NO, Miss Roseanne, NOTHING HAPPENED. DON'T MAKE ME GET THE BLEACH." A cookie flew past Andy's head, and Karen calmed down enough to continue speaking. "Please meet Kaatara, Mei, Tai lee, and Tai-lee." The lemurs in question swooped over the students' heads, chattering loudly. "One of you—no, I will not say who—created these lemurs when you misspelled the names of certain characters. May they be a reminder of what happens when you can't be bothered to check your spelling! And they aren't the only misspellings we have, oh no... Students, I would like to introduce you all to Marshall Arts! He was created by a misspelling of 'martial arts,' and will be our art, calligraphy, and yearbook portrait professor and consultant for the year. Everyone will be required to attend a private painting session, supervised by lemurs, for the OFUA:TLA Year One Yearbook. Said yearbook will be sent home with you to commemorate your amazing and fun year here. Yes, I was being sarcastic when I said 'fun.'" Marshall Arts came in to stand next to Karen, gaving a friendly wave to the students. He wore a gi—in Lupe's mind, "one of those stereotypical karate outfits"—that had been tie-dyed. A similarly colored piece of cloth was wrapped around his head. Karen nudged him, and he walked off the stage—or rather, backflipped and acted very much like a stereotypical ninja.

"Next, we have the lovely Silver Sandwitch!" Iroh announced. There was a gust of otherworldly wind (Aang's hand could be seen briefly behind the fluttering curtain), and a large pile of silver-colored sand drifted onto the stage. It coalesced into the vague shape of a lovely, anorexic young woman with what were probably chest enhancements. Since she was made of sand, it was hard to tell if she was wearing anything at all, but the slightest impression of a qipao could be perceived. Lupe, of course, did not know what a qipao was called, and thus mentally referred to it as "one of those closes-on-the-side, slits-at-the-thigh dresses stereotypical to China."

I hate you all.

"In case you can't tell, she's a spirit. And she's not very happy with whoever created her." Karen pulled out another cookie and began to eat it. "Oh, and she can't eat 'people food'…so if she's around during meals, make lots of noises of pleasure and taunting remarks. And hey, if she tries to kill you, she's only sand! She can't really hurt you! Unless you ingest her…then I don't know…" The agent frowned in thought, then looked speculatively at the (presumably scowling, due to the aura of malice radiating from the sand-cloud) spirit. "Anyone care to try eating parts of her and see what happens? Miss Roseanne, if you say what you are undoubtedly thinking, I will murder you painfully."

Andy slumped backwards in her chair, frowning. The shame bomb had worn off sometime during breakfast (to the displeasure of most), and she once again wanted to get some action. Apparently, she would not be getting any right now. What a shame.

"Okay, Silver Sandwitch, you can go now," Karen informed the spirit.

Oh, thank you. I am _so_ grateful to have your permission. As the sand drifted off in another unearthly wind (while Aang's blue-tattooed hand was again seen behind the fluttering curtain, bending said wind into existence for her), Karen and Iroh exchanged evil, conspiratorial looks.

"Finally, we have a very special guest." Iroh looked positively gleeful. "He was discovered by a PPC Agent years ago, and requested specially to be given a post here. Please welcome our Head of Fruit Pie Production (For Staff Members Only)…the hobbit Aang Took!"

A small blur whirred past the students from the back of the hall, and jumped as only an Airbender can do to land next to Iroh on the stage. "Hi everyone!" the tiny Airbender waved. He was about half the size of Aang and had very large, hairy, bare feet. "I'm Aang Took! I was created via a capitalization mistake, and now I've been allowed to work here!"

"Also, to all you Aanglers—having two Aangs around does NOT mean more for you. Unless by 'more,' you mean lemur-swarming." Karen offered the hobbit a cookie, which he gleefully accepted. "And if you see Aang Took going through the halls laden with fruit pies, you are not to attempt to glomp him or steal the pies, under pain of a lemur swarm. Or a projectile cookie. Mai's been showing me how to throw them with more accuracy and deadly force, so I really don't think you should tempt me to test out how much better I've gotten."

"Thank god she isn't sharpening them…" someone in the back of the auditorium—[-], it sounded like—muttered. Sadly for him, the hall was designed so that _any_ spoken word, in the front or the back, could be heard clearly by all. Okay, maybe the spirits were involved a tiny bit…

"_Sharpen_ them? Of course!" Karen developed a smile not unlike that of a sugar addict who has just been locked in a candy store after a month-long deprivation period. "Thank you, [-]! You're a _genius_! I should _sharpen_ my cookies!" [-] slid down in his seat as every students' eyes turned to him. Thank goodness their cell—ah, dorm—room doors automatically locked once everyone was inside.

"I think we've covered everything," Iroh put in nervously, eyeing the look on Karen's face as if she had just been given explosives (which the Staff intended to never, ever allow as a preventative measure). "Why don't we introduce the teachers?"

"Hm? Oh, great idea," Karen nodded. "Students, your teachers for Basic Canon…"

_Zuko. Zuko. Please, Zuko._ Lupe begged silently.

"…are…"

_Aang. Sokka. Toph._ Several people began to chant softly.

"…Iroh, Gyatso, Pakku, Gran-Gran, and King Bumi!"

"…"

"…"

"…"

"What? They're the old, wise mentor-types that know pretty much everything. The perfect teachers!"

The students erupted into chaos.


	6. Of Love and Libraries

**Welcome to another chapter of OFUA:TLA! I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender, and technically you lot own your students. But I'm still accepting more vic-ah, students! Get them in!**

**As a note, I've decided to cut the Questionnaire part from the applications. It's only cluttering up the messages, so leave it out. I'm just using it to get a better grip of your knowledge of canon, but I'm portraying you all as drooling fanbrats anyways, so it's pretty much irrelevant! :D**

* * *

Lupe stumbled out of Basic Canon with the rest of the Fire Nation and Air Nomad students, her head still hurting from all the screaming caused by the cheated Zuko fangirls. Alright, maybe she had been one of them. So what? She was entitled to her freedom of speech!

She had also conveniently forgotten that the school did not _allow_ freedom of speech.

"To 'What's In A Name,' Air Nomads and Fire Nation-ers!" Karen declared, following the students. "Come on! Move it! To the Fire Hall! Earth Kingdom-ers, Water Tribe-ers, you guys can go sleep now."

"Whaaaat?" Lauphen Staar whined. "But I wanna sleeeep!"

"Then you shouldn't have been a Bender," Karen sniffed like an offended noblewoman. "I mean, Benders have to train themselves day and night to master their element. What, did you lot think you could master Bending in a day? Didn't anybody see Ms. Megdaline's little Fi-yah!bending accident?" Several students shuddered at the memory of the purple flames called Fi-yah! that actively sought out hair to burn in. Lupe was just glad her own hair hadn't been caught in the blaze—she needed it to look pretty so she could catch Zuzu's attention, gosh-darnit!

"Sleep! Yes!" Vera Moretti moaned, almost toppling over. She was a Waterbender, and feeling extremely happy about it just then.

"Yeah, you'll need to sleep now," Karen observed, tone dangerously sweet. "After all, the Waterbender students have secondary training sessions every night until midnight."

"Whaat? No fair!" Carsten D protested. "I totally didn't sign up for this!"

"Honey, nobody told you what you were signing up for," Karen explained patiently. "If we had, you never would have signed that contract in the first place. But you did sign it, and we do own your soul, so you know what? You have absolutely no say whatsoever in what happens in your life! Why, if one of us willed it, we could force you to do fifty push-ups right here, right now, and you'd have to obey us!"

"Whaaat?" Elise, a non-Bender from the Earth Kingdom, flinched back. "But I don't like gym!"

"You don't? Aw, poor baby." Karen flashed a wicked grin. "You'd better learn to like it, because you're a non-Bender, and if you expect to be able to keep up with the Benders like most non-Benders do in fangirl stories, you'll have to work just as hard as them! Harder, even, maybe…now give me two hundred pushups, worm!"

Elise began her push-ups as Karen grinned maniacally over and munched on a cookie. The Water Tribe and Earth Kingdom students quickly vanished to the dorms, and the Fire Nation and Air Nomad students wandered the halls a bit until someone came to a door that looked suspiciously like the sanctuary door from the Fire Temple—well, that's what William GP said. Lupe wouldn't know, having never seen that episode.

"How do we open it?" Fyre Elaine wondered, poking the doors tentatively. She flinched back, as if she was half-expecting something to reach out and grab her.

"I think we have to open it like they did in the series," [-] observed sagely. "Can we get five Firebenders over here? Hey, Lupe, you're a Firebender, right? Okay, you…hey, short kid in red! Uh…Carden, was it? Jessica…? Okay, Jess, you two."

"I'm not short. I'm of a medium height…" Jess muttered darkly, going over to stand with Lupe before the door. Fyre Elaine joined them, declaring she was "the best Firebender in the whole world!" Several other Firebenders, mostly Zuko fangirls, muttered their disagreements.

"We still need two more! Come on, like half of you are Firebenders!" [-] yelled to the group of mostly fangirls (with a few fanboys scattered here and there). William GP was shoved forward by someone, and before he could disappear back into the crowd [-] had grabbed his arm and positioned him on one end of the Firebender line, next to Fyre Elaine. "One more person…"

"I'm a Firebender!" A Hispanic girl declared, shoving her way to the front of the group. Lupe blinked at seeing another Hispanic person here, but guessed she really shouldn't be that surprised. "My names Isabella Rose, and I'm the Avatar! Nice to meetchall!"

"Um…you're Fire Nation," Lupe pointed out, gesturing to the girl's clothes.

"Oh, that's 'cause I'm from the Fire Nation originally. And, I'm half Water Tribe." Isabella waved a hand dismissively. "But never mind that. I'm the Avatar!"

Silvery sand suddenly blew through the hallway and condensed before Isabella into the vague form of a woman in a qipao. Did you create me? The Silver Sandwitch screamed.

"Er…no," Isabella blinked. The Silver Sandwitch blew away. Everyone stared after her for a moment.

"That was random," Sofia finally said.

"I think we should get used to random," Somariel remarked. She dusted some leftover silver sand off of her red Fire Nation uniform. "Please just open the freakin' door before something else happens."

"Oh. Good idea," Isabella nodded, and inserted herself between Lupe and Fyre Elaine in the Firebender lineup. "Okay, Benders! On four! One, two—"

"Four? Why four?" Meep wondered in the crowd.

"Because I like four," Isabella scolded her. "Come on now, on four! One, two three—"

"Pi!" Lauphen Staar shouted happily. Isabella smacked her forehead with her hand in a perfect example of a facepalm.

"One," Isabella gritted her teeth, and this time the other Firebenders all managed to drop into vaguely Firebender-like stances. They all had very different ideas of what sort of stance a Firebender would use to get ready to launch a fireblast, however, and wound up looking like those people who paint themselves all one color and freeze in a weird position in a park to raise money for charity. "Two. Three. Four!" They each thrust a hand towards the door, Fyre Elaine and Isabella letting out what could vaguely be construed as "battle cries."

A tiny lick of flame was Lupe's result, not even managing to make it a foot past her hand before dying out. Isabella didn't even manage that, and William didn't do any better. Jessica managed to get a two-foot-long shot of reddish flame out before it flickered away.

Fyre Elaine, however, had some very interesting results. She released a stream of purple fire that shot over her head (managing to settle some of itself in her hair on the way) and headed directly towards Andy, Ashee, [-], Lauphen, and Sofia, who all stood behind her. Those whose hair was set alight with purple flame looked horrified for a moment, then reached up to gingerly touch their heads.

"It's…not even…hot," Sofia stated, brows furrowing in confusion. "But…it's…she's a Firebender…"

"Er…" Fyre Elaine grinned sheepishly. "Come to think of it…when it asked if I Bended anything, on the application…I…wrote 'Fyre.'" All the assembled students, even those with their hair in purple flames, stared at Fyre Elaine with near-identical "really now?" looks on their faces.

"You should have thought before you wrote something like that!" Karen appeared in the midst of the students. "Remember, none of the staff except me and my partner learned English writing as a primary writing style! They all use Chinese characters!"

"Where the hell did she come from?" Jessica Carden screamed.

"Silly child. You should know better than to question some things," Karen scolded. "Have a cookie as punishment." And she handed Jess a peanut-butter cookie.

"Oh…oh my goodness…actual _food_…" Jess's eyes widened in what was almost worship. She, like everyone else, had managed to not eat any of the jook at breakfast that morning, and by now, due to the training she had gone through with everyone else, she was understandably starving.

Sadly, so were the rest of the students. A fight over the cookie quickly broke out, and in the confusion, Karen opened the doors to Fire Hall and strode in, whistling a jaunty tune. She also snatched the cookie back, and began to munch on it contentedly as she walked through the barrier of flames protecting the stage.

Once everyone had realized they could enter the Hall, and that the cookie was mysteriously gone, they filed in grumpily. Karen smugly pulled out another cookie, and enjoyed it thoroughly (making sure the students knew) before dusting the crumbs off of herself.

"All right, students, welcome to What's In A Name, an OFU favorite that deals with the creation of lemurs. That's right, lemurs. Because lemurs should not be made. There's no excuse to make one." Karen gritted her teeth. "And the making of them gives me very homicidal urges that I'm forbidden from acting upon unless you are a Mary Sue and I have already charged you. So don't you dare try me." Her glare had everyone shrinking back in their seats before a cheerful grin replaced it and she clapped her hands together. "So, allow me to introduce this class's first guest—the much-misspelled Ty Lee!" The applause Karen tried to start died miserably as a girl in a pinkish outfit with a bared midriff and a braid cartwheeled onto the stage.

"Hi everyone! I'm Ty Lee!" she grinned. "You'll never use the characters for my name, but in Roman characters it's spelled Capital-T-Y Space Capital-L-E-E! That's my name! Ty Lee! Know it! Use it! Don't misspell it, please! And that's all! Bye!"

"Class dismissed." Karen turned and walked backstage, leaving a class full of very confused Air Nomads and Fire Nation-ers.

"That's…it?" Lupe wondered.

OFUA:TLA

"Hey, Lupe!" Lauphen Staar yelled as everyone was filing out of class. "Wait up!"

"Yeah?" Lupe turned to see Lauphen, along with [-], Sofia, and Meep, running towards her. Sadly, Meep was at the back of the group, and didn't realize they were stopping until she'd collided with Sofia and [-]. This led to the three of them crashing into Lauphen, who, of course, fell onto Lupe. The five students lay there for a moment, trying to figure out how the hell they had ended up on the floor.

"Ooh! I liiiike it!" Andy sauntered over, wolf-whistling. "Can I join in?"

"Huh?" Meep looked up, confused. "Join what? Did I…did I just fall?"

"I fell!" Lauphen exclaimed in surprise, hauling herself upright, eyes wide. "Did anybody else see that? I fell!"

"Ympf mpftng n mm," Lupe mumbled from the bottom of the pile. Everyone quickly got off of her, babbling apologies and blaming everyone else for the incident (except for Meep, who was still marveling over the fact that she fell). Andy was more than a little disappointed to see such a promising situation break up so awkwardly.

"Anyways," [-] clasped his hands together and turned to Lupe as soon as the mess was sorted out and everyone was standing (to Andy's sorrow). "We were going to go investigate the Library. Would you like to come?"

"Library?" Lupe turned her head to give [-] a bird-ish side-look (that's how she thought of it, because she remembered hearing somewhere that birds turn their heads sideways to get a better look at things, and she thought acting like a bird was cute and might attract Zuko). Now, Lupe had nothing against libraries. She rather liked most libraries. But her grandmother was a librarian, and insisted on absolute silence wherever she was, even if it was a playground full of children. Neither Lupe nor any of her cousins were particularly fond of the old woman.

"Yup! So come on!" Lauphen seized one of Lupe's arms, and Sofia grabbed the other. They must have been practicing this, or else they were just naturally good at it, because they proceeded to drag a shell-shocked Lupe down the hallway. Andy, wondering if this was going to lead to anything interesting, followed after them quickly.

In no time at all, they had found their way to yet another pair of huge doors. "This seems to be a recurring theme," [-] noted, rubbing his chin. "All right. Anybody know how to open this door?"

"Not a clue." Lupe squinted up at it.

"Hey guys!" Meep called. The group all looked down to see Meep had opened a small, nondescript door situated just next to the larger doors, where it would be easily overlooked in favor of the grand entrance.

"I knew that was there," Sofia said after a short pause. "I was just…waiting to see if anyone else caught on."

"I should see if Iroh will convince Aang Took to teach me how to bake his fruit pies," Lauphen mused. Everyone looked over at her for a second, then shrugged and followed Meep into the Library.

Lupe, the last one to enter, stopped in the doorway. Her head began to spin dangerously. The library was filled with shelves five times taller than her, maybe more, all filled with Oriental-style scrolls.

So…many…scrolls…

"Hey! We can't read this stuff!" [-] exclaimed angrily. "Where's the English?"

Oh dear. Students.

Everyone froze, then slowly turned to their left. A huge owl stood perhaps fifty feet from them. He was the perfect size for the shelves in here—the topmost scrolls would only require him to stand on his tiptoes to reach them, and that was only if he didn't use his wings. His feathers were dark brown-nearly black-on his back and the outside of his wings, and white on his front.

There's no need to stare. It's quite rude. He sounded almost affronted, if giant talking owls can sound affronted. I am Wan Shi Tong, He Who Knows Ten Thousand Things, the "Head Librarian," as it were.

"A talking owl! AWESOME!" Meep screamed, launching herself forward towards Wan Shi Tong. Before she got ten feet, however, three larger-than-the-ones-Lupe-had-seen-in-the-zoo-or-on-TV foxes had jumped on her, pinning her to the ground.

I'm afraid my Knowledge Seekers will prevent any attempts at…I believe the word was "glomping"? Yes, that was it. Glomping. Wan Shi Tong ruffled his feathers, and Lupe tensed to run, in case he was about to attack. My Knowledge Seekers will prevent all attempts at glomping, or similar outbursts, in this Library. Now get out.

"But we're here to read stuff!" Lauphen protested.

"It's all in Chinese!" Sofia shot at her fellow Airbender. "How are we supposed to read it anyways?"

I don't care what you're here to do. Whatever it is, you will undoubtedly abuse the knowledge you gain here. Wan Shi Tong pointed to the small door with his wing. Now get out. All five of you.

"Oka—wait. Five of us?" [-] looked around. "Where's Andy?"

A scream came from several floors below. Not a scream of terror, however—a scream of joy. Wan Shi Tong winced—or he did something as close to wincing as an owl can get.

I believe… He hesitated. I believe…she may have just found the erotic section of the Library.

OFUA:TLA

"Hello everybody! Welcome to Platonic Love!" Karen flashed everyone her usual insane grin from the stage of Fire Hall. "Are you all enjoying your first day of OFUA:TLA?"

"_NO_!" all the students roared in unison. Platonic Love, a noon-to-one class, was for the Fire Nation, Earth Kingdom, and Water Tribe students. Those lucky Air Nomads had no class until one.

"Excellent! I'm doing my job right!" Karen pulled out a cookie, and waved it in the air to taunt the students before shoving half of it into her mouth. "Mmm…cookie."

"I hate you!" Allie sobbed from the back of the hall. Karen smiled contentedly and finished off the cookie before clearing her throat to begin.

"This is Platonic Love," she lectured. "In this class, you will learn about the different types of love; romantic love, including physical relationships, and platonic love, which should be a new concept for most of you. Platonic love is indeed a form of love, but it includes none of the romantic or hormonal desires that fuel most of your Mary Sues and OCs."

"Why not just say the words?" Andy yelled.

"Wh—excuse me, Miss Roseanne, but what words might you be talking about?" Karen flushed deep pink.

"I'm _talking_ about the words you're not saying!" Andy rolled her eyes. Karen began to stammer something about not knowing what Andy was talking about, but Andy cut her off. "Sex! Sexual! Fucking! _Those_ words!"

To the great amusement of most of the hall, Karen turned a deep scarlet and buried her face in her hands. "Mmgf…eeargh…" She choked out.

"Er. Allow me to take over." Iroh walked out from backstage and patted Karen on the back before speaking to the students. "This class will cover platonic love, from familial love to friendship. We will have several lectures about romantic love later in the semester, but for now, you're stuck with platonic. Teachers will alternate to instruct you on different topics." He half-turned to gesture to someone behind the curtains to come onto the stage, then returned his attention to the students. "And now I will introduce to you the first two teachers of the semester—Zuko and Sokka."

The two boys nervously stepped out from behind the curtains into full view of the students. For a moment, there was dead silence, even from the lemurs perching all around the hall.

Then pretty much every female in the room got to her feet and stormed the podium.


	7. Of Healing and Classes

**Me: *sneaks in to post* Don't own Avatar…co-wrote this chapter with Caelum Blue…sorry it took so long, I had finals…now I should have more time…please don't throw tomatoes or cabbages at me…cabbages hurt…**

* * *

Lupe slowly blinked her eyes open, gradually becoming aware of her surroundings. There were a lot of moaning sounds, and some crying, and someone was bending over her. Pretty much every part of Lupe's body hurt like hell, and she wasn't enjoying the sensation. But there was some sort of coolness making its way along her arm, soothing the pain…

Her vision began to work properly, and Lupe realized that she was being Healed by none other than Katara of the Southern Water Tribe. The realization that one-half of her favorite Avatar pairing was currently using her Bending to help Lupe feel better caused the girl to sit up sharply, causing her entire body to flare up in pain and Katara to jump back in surprise, her water splashing to the floor.

"Lie back!" Katara insisted, picking up her water with her Bending. "You shouldn't move until I've finished healing you!"

"_Are you with Zuko_?_"_ Lupe demanded, the need to actually ask that question overriding the pain she felt. _"Do you have feelings of any kind for him_?_"_

"Erm…friendship? Now lie back down!" Katara put a hand on Lupe's forehead, and a slight push was enough to send the Hispanic girl down. "And I have no intention of becoming romantically involved with him. Honestly, why can't you people just accept that Aang and I are in love? No, don't move, I still need to finish Healing…"

"Can I talk?" Lupe sighed as the cool water began to Heal her once more.

"Well, you're talking already…I'd say it's fine," Katara pointed out. "Ugh, you're one of the worse victims…the minute those fangirls saw Zuko, they started storming the stage. You were one of them, if I recall, so you really should avoid Mai for the semester or so. Hopefully you'll all be wiser on Wednesday. No, I said don't move!"

"Nn…do I get to skip classes for the rest of today?" Lupe knew it was probably foolish to hope, but she was too tired to think at the moment.

"You'll have to attend Spirit World 101 at the end of the day," Katara replied. "I still can't believe how many people try to make their characters spirits. Don't they realize that they're just…oh, what did Karen call it…'godmoding,' I think it was?"

"B-but, it lets you put in tragic romance!" Lupe's eyes widened in shock at a canon character displaying such dislike for such a common theme in Avatar: The Last Airbender fanfiction.

"It gets old," Katara rolled her eyes. "Like all those stories with me and Zuko. _I'm_ not interested in _him_, and _he's_ not interested in _me_. Why can't people just accept that we're not attracted to each other and let us be with the people we really _do _love?"

Lupe's next words were entirely foolish, and should not have been uttered. However, she was in pain, she was tired, and she was a complete fangirl. These factors definitely contributed.

"But you and Zuko are _meant to be!_"

THWACK!

* * *

"Hello, and welcome to Peaceful Air Monks," Gyatso called from the stage. The Air Nomad students had been gathered into the Air Hall, a rather large hall with a yellow and orange color scheme and swirling patters on the walls. Karen was nowhere to be seen, for which the students profusely thanked whatever deities they followed, and the stories of the stampede in Platonic Love earlier were keeping them fast in their seats.

Next to Gyatso stood a very familiar figure to anyone who had seen even one episode of the series-unless that episode was "Zuko Alone." Avatar Aang, the last living Airbender according to the canon, was flicking little tornadoes from his fingers at a random passing butterfly. Momo was perched on his shoulders, peering at the students as if they were a ravenous horde of evildoers. Which, in the eyes of canon characters, they pretty much were.

"Now, in this class, we hope to teach you students about the peaceful way of life we Air Nomads had, and how you can reflect it in your fanfictions," Gyatso smiled serenely at the students. "Today will merely be a very basic introduction to how we Air Nomads lived. Aang, could you please activate the 'projector' that Karen showed us how to use?"

"Huh? Oh—yeah, sure," Aang nodded, turning away from the butterfly to walk over to a very modern image projector pointing at a sheet of white fabric. "Okay. So. Before we start, what do you guys know about Air Nomads?"

"They ride on huge Sky Bison!" Lauphen Staar called out.

"Their Bending defies all scientific logic!" Sofia Jayne Owens added.

"They're really, really flexible!" Andy Roseanne finished.

"That's very good, students," Gyatso smiled indulgently. "But that is only a very cursory glance of our culture. Because we were all dead by the time of the series, much of what is known about us can only be inferred from Aang's behavior and beliefs, flashbacks of his or Roku's, and guesses based on the Earth culture we were based on. What do you students know about the monks in your world's country of Tibet?"

"They're monks!" Lauphen Staar declared. "From Tibet!" There was a rather profound silence in the room as the sheer obviousness of her statement sank into everyone.

"They wear really cool monk robes?" someone from the back of the hall called after a while.

"They took vows of celibacy, since they're monks and all," Sofia Jayne Owens ventured.

"What? Why would anyone take vows of celibacy?" Andy looked at Gyatso and Aang in terror. "Tell me…tell me you two haven't…"

"Hello! Aang has a kid by the second series! What do you think?" the girl next to Andy scowled in disgust.

"I think I'd like to see if some of the femslash stories I've read have any merit to them…" Andy winked at the girl, who immediately clambered over three other students to sit on the floor of the aisle. "Spoilsport."

"Anyways! Moving away from my love life!" Aang began pushing buttons on the projector, finally managing to turn it on. "There we go…all right, so. Air Nomads." A picture of Aang and a group of other young Air Nomad children appeared on the white sheet. At the bottom of the screen, the words "Peaceful Air Nomads" could be seen in bright yellow letters.

"The Air Nomads were primarily situated in four Air Temples, located at different points of the map of our world," Gyatso began. Aang pressed a button on the projector, and an image of the Avatar world map appeared on the screen, with the Air Nomad territories highlighted in bright yellow. "There are three official Air Nomad territories, hosting the Western, Eastern, and Southern Air Temples. Unlike the other Air Temples, the Northern Air Temple is situated in the northern Earth Kingdom, and not in its own separate Air Nomad territory."

"Why?" Someone called.

"The reason is never touched on in the series," Gyatso replied. "There could be any number of reasons. Perhaps it was the first Air Temple, or perhaps it was the last. Maybe there was simply no land available for the Air Nomads to use when the Northern Temple was built. But we will return to the subject of the Temples themselves in a later class. Moving on. Aang?" Aang pushed a button, and an image of the Council from the Southern Air Temple appeared.

"There was no true caste system in Air Nomad society," Gyatso began to pace across the stage as he talked. "Each Temple was governed primarily by a council of the five eldest monks, who handled day-to-day decisions and kept order in their respective Temples. Below them were ordinary monks, and below them, children learning to Airbend. We will further explore the—"

"But what about non-Airbender children?" a student interrupted, sitting at the left side of the hall. "Were they second-class citizens or something?"

"All Air Nomads were Airbenders." Aang walked over to the screen and tapped on the children. "If you were born to an Air Nomad, you were an Airbender. There's a reason for it, but we'll go into it at another time. Should we move on?"

"Yes please," Gyatso requested. Aang pushed a button again, and this time a picture of four Air Nomad monks meditating in a garden appeared. "Now, as monks, we were very spiritual. All Air Nomad children learned to meditate at a young age. Aang is shown meditating several times in the series. There are several requirements to be able to meditate, including a quiet, peaceful environment and the ability to concentrate deeply."

"That throws Lauphen out of the running," a girl sniggered.

"It does!" Lauphen agreed, a proud grin on her face.

"Excuse me!" Aang yelled. "Please pay attention, students! As Gyatso was about to say, we'll be spending half of our classes teaching all of you to meditate. It will help you to focus yourself, concentrate your chi better, and give you peace of mind."

"I'll take a piece of someone!" Andy stood up, a suggestive smile on her face. The lemurs, who had previously been sitting around the hall staring at the students, immediately swarmed the girl. After a moment, several of them began to carry her unconscious body out of the hall and towards the Healers' Wing.

"Thank goodness," Gyatso wiped his brow. "I know we must be tolerant, but that young lady can be very hard to stand. Why she ever decided to be a nun…"

"I don't think the students realize that Air Nomads are all monks and nuns, Gyatso," Aang sighed.

"What? I don't wanna be a nun!" Lauphen screamed. She attempted to run for the door, but the remaining lemurs began to divebomb her, preventing her from leaving. "No! No! I am not a nun! I refuse to be religious! I re—mmphf!" The lemurs dragged a thrashing Lauphen back to her seat, wailing about how she would never submit. It was probably best Andy was gone by that point.

"Well, now that Ms. Staar is being quiet, let's move on," Gyatso suggested as Aang pressed another button. "Next is the subject of our diet—Air Nomads are purely vegetarians, and as such, you will only be served vegetarian diets—"

The screams of agony could be heard in the Healers' Section, where a barely-conscious Andy Roseanne cursed that she was missing out on the fun.

* * *

Karen examined the letter she'd just received. It was from Brian and Mike, telling her about the upcoming series. They couldn't put anything the public didn't know in the letter, but seeing as there was no Internet or cable at OFUA:TLA, the woman was learning several new details that were making her shake with excitement. Literally, she was shaking. Passing staff members and guards were somewhat creeped out, but not entirely surprised.

"Hey, Karen!" Aang fell out of the sky to sit next to the girl. "Weren't you gonna go talk to the Water Tribe Warriors and Earth Kingdom Fighters classes?"

"Nah," Karen shook her head, though it was hard to tell if that was because she was saying no or if it was just part of her shaking. "My partner's gonna do that."

* * *

The Water Tribe students were sitting in the Water Hall, which was, you guessed it, made entirely of ice. Since the Fire Nation's usual temperatures were on par with those in Mexico or sub-Saharan Africa, and the school was in the middle of a boiling lake, it was melting at an alarming rate.

One of the Water Tribe students, Sunan, was cursing his luck. He'd written "Foggy Swamp Water Tribe" on his application, and now he was not allowed to wear pants with his uniform. He had the shirt, and the boots, the jacket, the armguards, even underwear—but not pants. Now his butt was freezing as he sat on a rapidly-melting chair made of ice, trying not to slip off. Next to him, Vera Moretti, whose insistence on being called V had resulted in her being issued a Guy Fawkes mask, was attempting to use her jacket to keep her behind from getting too wet.

An all-too-familiar figure strode onto the stage. Karen had apparently taken off her trenchcoat, but her brown hair was still up in its ponytail, so the fan-students wouldn't be fooled by her outfit change. Never mind the fact that her facial structure and body build were completely different from before—_everyone_ knew eye and hair color were the only _real_ ways to describe someone.

"Hello, students," Karen called, slipping a bit on the ice. Her foot actually went through a brittle patch, and she spent a moment working it out. "Ow…okay. Hello, students. My name is Anjilly Ka."

This announcement was announced by perplexed silence. The students exchanged dubious glances while the strange girl who apparently wasn't Karen, despite having brown ponytailed hair, smiled nervously at them.

Finally, one brave soul in row three asked, "Where's Karen?"

"Unavailable," Anjilly Ka said, sorting through some index cards. "Why? Would you prefer her?" A thrill of fear swept through the students. "No? Alright then. Hello students," she repeated, now staring at the index cards in her hands. "My name is Anjilly Ka."

"Who?" someone asked.

Anjilly Ka's smile became a little tight. "My name is _Anjilly Ka_. You can call me Agent Ka, or Miss Ka. I used to be an agent of the PPC-"

"The what?"

Anjilly Ka's knuckles became a little white around the index cards. "The Protectors of the Plot Continuum?" At the students' blank stares, she groaned. "I used to spend my time cleaning up all the messes _your_ badfics made in the canon continuums." She glanced back at her index cards and moved on to the next one in the stack. "But, once I heard OFUA:TLA was opening, I decided it was time for a career change. So." She turned to the next index card, looked up, and gave a bright, strained smile. "Any questions?"

The students, confidence bolstered by the fact that Anjilly Ka was _not_ Karen and showed no signs of hitting them with cookies, exploded.

"Are you as insane as Karen is?"

"Are you as _mean_ as Karen is?"

"I still don't understand what the PPC is, exactly..."

"Do you have any _real_ food?"

"Maybe, not necessarily, I'm not going to honor that with a response, and Asian food is perfectly real. Anyone else? No? Good." Anjilly took a deep breath and looked back at her index cards. Clearing her throat, she said, "Welcome to Water Tribe Warriors, where you will learn about Water Tribe culture and traditions. As honorary members of the Water Tribe, this class"-she switched to the next card-"will be instrumental in helping you to understand and appreciate the-yes?"

"Does Sokka teach this?"

"Er-"

"Does _Yue_ teach this?"

"Well-"

"Screw them," one girl said. "What about Hakoda? Now there's a DILF-"

"Ew!" someone said.

"-_understand and appreciate the intricate civilization you write about_," Anjilly soldiered on, staring steadfastly at her index cards. "This understanding will lead to better fanfiction, because knowledge is power, and-"

"Are you just going to stand up there and drone on the whole time?"

Anjilly Ka suddenly tore up her index cards, threw the shreds of paper into the air, and glared at the assembled students. "Yadda yadda yadda, important introduction that'll let you know what you're getting into, but hey, learning through pain is an OFU tradition anyway, so whatever, blah blah blah."

Sunan perked up in sudden dread. "Wait...what was that last one?"

"Blah blah blah," Anjilly answered, looking offstage. "You three can come up now."

"No, I meant the one about learning through-"

"Allow me to introduce you to your instructors," Anjilly said. "Opening today's lesson, we have Master Pakku, who will give us a brief overview of the Northern Water Tribe, Huu, who will do the same for the Foggy Swamp Tribe, and Hama, representing the Southern Water Tribe." Waving her hand at the three old people on the stage, she added, "Enjoy your class. I'm off." She stomped off the stage, leaving the students to stare at their instructors.

"Hello, students," Hama said with a chilling smile. "I feel we are all going to get along _swimmingly_."

* * *

The Earth Kingdom students were, at this time, sitting across the way in the Earth Hall, which was made of stone and had a dirt floor. It appeared that someone very evil indeed (the students suspected Karen) had littered the floor with various types of hybrid bugs. Several pillars lined the sides of the room, and one had a gigantic night crawler wrapped around it. Said night crawler was hissing ominously, and had a very large clear space around it. There were no seats, so everyone was sitting on the floor and trying not to get too dirty.

Up on stage, the Earth King and Bosco were standing next to Haru and Toph. The few Toph fanboys in the crowd were tittering in a small group near the stage. In the approximate middle of the hall, a student named Zerkz was sitting on his jacket, shuddering whenever a creepy-crawly attempted to climb up his feet. He was thoroughly annoyed that there was no Suki for this class, and somewhat angered by the fact that he kept overhearing girls complaining about how Suki was a "Mary-Sue." Suki was _not_ a Mary-Sue. She was just perfect…

The three teachers—four if one counted Bosco—on the stage looked up eagerly as a door behind them opened, and Karen walked up to them. Or at least—she had brown hair in a ponytail like Karen's. Zerkz was too far away to see her eyes, but he assumed they were brown like Karen's. This woman wasn't wearing Karen's clothing, but it wasn't a stretch to think of reasons for changing. Like, needing to wash the blood off.

"All right, listen up, students," Karen snapped. "My name is Anjilly Ka, but you can call me Agent Ka or Miss Ka. I was an Agent of the PPC—Protectors of the Plot Continuum, remember it well—and I'm Karen's partner in running the day-to-day affairs of OFUA:TLA. Yadda yadda yadda, important introduction stuff, GOOD-BYE!" With that, Anjilly Ka-apparently-not-Karen stormed off the stage.

"Ah…right," the Earth King jumped a little as the unseen door behind him slammed. "Well, uh…let's start the lesson, shall we?"

* * *

Karen looked up from sharpening a snickerdoodle when someone collapsed into the chair beside her. "Oh, hey. How'd it go?"

Anjilly opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again, and finally settling for sighing and burying her face in her hands. "I left my nice, uncomfortable Response Center for this?"

"Yes. Yes you did."

"I can't even make a charge list and kill them, can I?"

"Of course not!" Karen laughed. "They aren't Sues and Stus! They're the actual _writers_!"

"Mmph," Anjilly moaned. "I suppose I'll just have to make do with making their lives a living hell, then."

"Well, of course!" Karen beamed, setting aside the snickerdoodle and picking up an oatmeal raisin. "That's our job!"


	8. Of Fishbowls and Dinner

**Oh look. A chapter. Fancy that.**

**I'd like to reiterate something-I cannot say it enough, by the way-nobody, and I mean NOBODY, will be taken seriously here. Be as serious as you like in your application-if me and my amazingly epic beta think we can milk some humor out of your character, we will do it. Don't be offended-it's happening to everybody. **

**On that note, I don't own Avatar: The Last Airbender. My work has been betad by the wonderful Caelum Blue, for whom I thank the heavens every day. Enjoy!**

* * *

Lana Kirk—aka Freeranger—was in full blown Not Amused™ mode. She was locked in a small, badly-lit room that smelled of turnips. Why turnips, she did not know. It was probably part of Karen's Evil Plan to wear her down. Who else could have inexplicably known of her passionate hatred of turnips?

In any case, Freeranger (so she preferred being called Freeranger, so what? The application form had asked for her name. Nicknames totally counted) was sitting in her cell—ahem, classroom—and waiting for someone to come in and tell her what to do. Somewhere along the line, she'd lost track of time, and now she was wondering how such a cheesy line could manage to sound so cool in her head. "Somewhere along the line, I've lost track of time," she murmured to herself. Line and time had totally different endings—they shouldn't rhyme! But somehow they did…

The door opened, and Freeranger looked up to see yet another random guard—whose name, if she asked, would almost definitely be Lee—enter her ce-classrorom. He was clearly attempting the Stereotypical Badass Guard™ look, and just as clearly failing. What could be seen of his face was pimply and pale, like he only rarely saw the sun. Just how desperate was this place for guards, that it had to take in teens like him?

"What now?" Freeranger groaned, resisting the urge to thump her head against her desk. It had been a long…however much time she'd spent in here, and she just wanted to get _out_. Maybe see some sunlight. Oh god, sunlight…just the thought made the room seem even smaller and darker, if that was possible.

"I have a message for you from Warden Karen," the guard-whose-name-was-likely-Lee replied. His voice was high and slightly nasal in quality, which, come to think of it, should have been expected seeing as he was scarcely past puberty. But then he let loose a Karen impersonation that would have won him an Emmy, if he lived in America and actually knew what Emmys were. "'All right, fanbrat, before we release you from your cell—uh, classroom—for the day, write an essay on everything you know about the show. Five pages minimum, and don't do that thing I used to do where I'd use really large letters to write and meet the requirement, because it's really annoying for the people reading your paper. Yeah, I think that's OH DEAR SPIRITS YOU TWO IS THAT REALLY NECESSARY? IN THE STAFF ROOM? NO, NO IT'S NOT, AND YES AANG I DO KNOW I'M ANSWERING MYSELF, BUT IT'S STILL REALLY NOT NECESSARY. NO, HAKODA, NO, SOKKA IS NOT 'ATTA BOY,' DON'T ENCOURAGE THIS! WHAT IS oh, um, no, no, it's good, just head off now, give Captain Kirk her message, I'll be fine…yeah…'"

Freeranger stared at the guard. "I don't think she wanted you to tell me all of that," she pointed out.

"Well, likely not, I agree," the guard-probably-named-Lee admitted, "but she said to repeat everything she said until she told me to stop. Since she only told me to stop at the end…well, what would you have done?"

"Um…" Freeranger thought, "I…probably would have quoted her exactly, just to annoy her. It may seem premature, but I really don't like her."

"Um. She doesn't like you, so it's probably not all that premature, miss," the guard shrugged. "Nobody here likes your kind. You mess with the Fire Nation and make perfectly decent people who've been lied to all their lives out as complete monsters. Lots of the other guards feel that teaching you all is just a huge waste of time. But we're making an effort, because we're not killers—which is the second-most popular opinion of how to deal with you all, by the way."

"Say what now?" Freeranger immediately gave him her full attention. "I just wrote one stupid story! And I only wrote it because the characters are all a bunch of goodie-goodies who need to realize they're not all that! What's so bad about having them get defeated by someone way more awesome than they are?"

"Maybe the fact that, as you put it, they really are 'all that'?" The guard rolled his eyes. "Look, that Airbender kid is the Avatar. He's supposed to be the most powerful being in this world. And you seem to be under the impression he always wins. I don't know what you've heard, but does the Fall of Ba Sing Se mean anything to you? Avatar Aang literally _died_ then."

"Er. I…didn't watch that episode," Freeranger looked away, a blush starting on her cheeks. "I've only really seen one episode."

The guard didn't even dignify that with a response. He turned around and exited the cell—classroom, sorry, it's a classroom, swear—without another word. Freeranger watched him go, wondering if maybe he had a point.

* * *

It bears mentioning—if you haven't figured it out already—that Fanfiction Universities, especially for stories that take place in worlds not at all like Earth, tend to be extremely odd places. In fact, even Fanfiction Universities for stories that are basically just alternate versions of the Real World can have some crazy inhabitants, which are primary ingredients for crazy events. So you really shouldn't be surprised at the sight of a giant panda walking through the halls of an Official Fanfiction University, no matter who you are or where you're from.

Yes, there was indeed a giant panda walking through OFUA:TLA. It was fairly normal, as pandas went, aside from it being giant. It had the ears, the face, the cute black spots around the eyes-everything one would expect in a panda. Only it was huge. Seriously big. Like, a hundred times the size of a normal panda.

Said gigantic panda was walking through the staff hallways of OFUA:TLA, which really weren't all that different from the student hallways. The main difference was that they were a level above the student hallways to discourage glomping. The hallways were what you might call "wandering," and they occasionally terminated at the oddest places without leading anywhere. The odd layout had a very simple explanation: Karen, who claimed to have been an architecture student for a year, had single-handedly designed the remodeling required to make the Boiling Rock into a learning facility for fangirls and fanboys. When one looked at a bird's-eye view of the new sections, they bore a suspicious resemblance to a plate of cookies. There were even oddly-shaped offices scattered about that that were either the chocolate chips or the sprinkles, depending on whether you were listening to Iroh or Jet.

The giant panda was currently passing one such chocolate chip/sprinkle, and he was not alone. Accompanying him was an attractive young woman carrying a fishbowl that was too large for her to balance properly. A pair of monochromatic fish were swimming in a circle in the water, and when viewed from above, they had an eerie similarity to the yin-yang symbol. Yue isn't "somewhat" attractive—she _is_ attractive. ^_~

Any educated fanbrat—no, wait, that's an oxymoron, isn't it? Any educated _audience_ would recognize this group as being, in order of mention: Hei Bai, the Black and White Spirit; Yue, former Tribal Princess of the Water Tribe and current incarnation of the Moon Spirit; and the mortal forms of the Moon and Ocean Spirits, Tui and La, Push and Pull, Yin and Yang, blah blah blah, they're fish.

Now, Yue could not see very well due to the fishbowl, and thus was very lost in the staff hallways of OFUA:TLA. Hei Bai, you couldn't tell with him, it's very hard to tell when a panda's got any sort of facial expression going on, but he was turning his head from side to side in a manner that could be construed as confusion, perhaps an attempt to figure out where he was. Tui and La, in the fishbowl, were circling each other calmly and giving no indication that they noticed anything beyond the glass.

Suddenly, as Yue dutifully trekked down the hallway with her sacred burden, a very unstrategically-placed office door opened and hit the fishbowl dead-on. This didn't do much more than chip the glass of the fishbowl itself. However, in the change from mortal girl to Moon Spirit, Yue hadn't gained much in upper body strength. She fell sideways, and the glass bowl in her hands fell to the suspiciously-ginger snap-shaped metal floor tiles below. The floor was suddenly drenched with water—as well as two unfortunate fish.

"No!" Yue cried out in shock. "Tui! La!"

"Oh no, I'm so sorry!" Suki, who had opened the door in the first place, immediately got to her knees and tried to catch the black fish—the Ocean Spirit, mostly thought to be the one called La. Yue tried to pick up the white one, the Moon Spirit, commonly thought to be called Tui.

Sokka, who had remained in the office attempting to wipe off all the makeup from his face and neck, heard the thud outside as the fishbowl hit the ground. He immediately ran out to see what was happening, where he promptly tripped over Suki, hit the floor, and slid through the water into the opposite wall. "Oww…" the Water Tribe warrior moaned.

"Sokka! Are you okay?" Suki bolted to her feet and tried to run over to him, but slipped on the wet metal floor and fell backwards onto the fishbowl. Since the fishbowl was round, and the Universal Laws of Comedy are cruel, the fishbowl rolled backwards and took Suki with it. Her head hit the floor and gave her a mild concussion. "Oww…"

Yue observed all this with the stunned silence. Her jaw had dropped open, her ears were only registering noises half a minute after they occurred, and her eyes had widened to the point where an enterprising author might use the simile "as wide as dinner plates."

"S-Sokka…?" she whispered. "Is that you?"

"Huh?" Sokka picked himself up from the floor. "Yue…?"

The two stared at each other for a long moment. Sokka had thought Yue was forever untouchable, as the Moon Spirit: Yue had thought that, as the Moon Spirit, she would only see Sokka from the sky. Neither had considered the possibility that the University might bring them together again.

"Yue…"

"Sokka…"

And then they were hugging, and whispering each other's names, and all that sappy stuff that Emotional Reunions have, and yadda yadda yadda. You're not reading this for romance, are you? Seriously, this is a Fanfiction University. It's for learning about how to write good fanfiction. And attempting—and failing—to glomp one's Lust Objects. Not much romance potential in that.

While the Emotional Reunion between Sokka and Yue was going on, Suki was rubbing her head and wondering why everything was spinning. The air directly in front of her was filled with pretty fireworks, in all sorts of colors. Something nearby was making a loud ringing noise. Ooh, pretty colors…

Wait a minute. Wasn't that Sokka, behind all the lights, hugging a girl? A girl that was quite clearly not Suki, nor even remotely physically similar to Suki so he could claim he was mistaken in the bad lighting?

No girl likes to see her man with another woman, unless she knows for sure that woman is not interested in men, is related to the man in question, or is happily married. The last case does not always soothe a woman's suspicions either: in some cases, it actually makes them worse. From what Suki could see, the woman Sokka was hugging was young—about Suki's age, which did not help matters any—beautiful, and not sporting a betrothal necklace.

All of these factors, combined with the pretty lights starting to fade and leaving a rather nasty headache behind in their wake, had Suki getting to her feet and grabbing Sokka's arm. "Sokka, love, who's this?" Suki batted her eyelashes at her boyfriend—and he'd better not forget that he was _her_ boyfriend—as fetchingly as she knew how. Since she was a teenaged girl with no lack of attractive features, that was pretty darn fetching.

"Oh, Suki…" Sokka trailed off as he remembered she was there. He smiled warmly at her on instinct, before seeing Yue's surprised face from the corner of his eye. "Oh! Oh, Suki!" The young warrior leaped back from both women as if they were about to attack.

"Um…" Yue stared at the girl who'd just startled Sokka. "Sokka, who is this?"

Sokka gulped. This was not a good situation to be in.

"Hey, we heard noises—oh sharding glaciers!" Katara exclaimed, rounding a corner down the hall. "That…is that…are those…Sokka, Suki, _please_ tell me that's not the Moon and Ocean on the floor!"

"Oh, it's them," Karen cackled. She'd been watching the entire scene from a dramatically shadowed doorway ever since Sokka and Suki had left the office (knowing what they were likely up to, she had settled for waiting in a corner until they left before going inside to retrieve some files, but this was so much more entertaining than paperwork that she had stayed to see what would happen next. It was like a soap opera, only real life, so way cheesier). Now the Agent revealed herself, a wicked smile on her face. "These three have forgotten entirely about them. I expect some terrible disasters are going on outside right now."

Meanwhile, a blood-red moon had appeared in the late afternoon sky outside, and beaches all around the world were being hit with tsunami-sized waves. People in boats, mostly fisherman and Navy officers, were experiencing freak attacks by various sea creatures. In the Boiling Rock, Waterbender students complained of severe headaches (despite never having been touched by the life force of the Ocean or Moon Spirits) and made sure to fall into Zuko's path as he walked by. He was retaliating by stepping on them. Zhao, meanwhile, sulked in a corner, upset that someone was trying to usurp his position as Moon Slayer.

"Oh dear spirits! And _you_ didn't do anything?" Katara shrieked. She attempted to Bend the water on the floor into a rough sphere for both fish, but the liquid had either evaporated in the Fire Nation heat or slipped through the seams of the metal floor. There wasn't much left. What remained was barely enough for one fish. "Someone get water! Water! I'm sorry, your Moonness, your Oceanness, more water will be here in a minute—where's that water?"

It wasn't coming.

"Sokka," Suki's voice reached the boy's ears. "I'm waiting."

"And so am I," Yue added. Sokka winced. Apparently they hadn't been distracted by his sister like he'd hoped.

"Well, um, you see, Yue, is, is Yue, and she's the Moon Spirit you see, and Suki is a Kyoshi Warrior, and she kissed me on the cheek once like a few days after I found Aang—well, Katara and I found Aang, and Katara's the one who saved him, and I was just really suspicious of him at first but I started to like him after a little while, and he's really a great kid, but you both know that, so, um, um—" Sokka babbled.

"Has he always been this bad at explanations?" Yue whispered to Suki, who she figured had probably known him longer.

"Oh, has he been," Suki replied with a giggle. "You should see him draw."

"I've seen his carving. It's not that good," Yue confided.

"Um…I can hear you…I am right here…" Sokka muttered plaintively.

"Will someone get me some water already?" Katara snapped.

"Water is wet," Karen observed unhelpfully.

"Sokka!"

"Oh, very well. I'll save the day," Karen said demurely, pulling what looked to be ten gallons of water in a hat out of a nearby plothole. A man's head poked out as well, gasping for breath. "Oh, hey Marshall Arts."

"Thank goodness!" he exclaimed, climbing out of the plothole. His thoroughly drenched, tye-died gi dripped water all over the floor. "I thought I was going to be stuck in there until the school year was over! I'm not even sure how I got into it in the first place…" Sounds better this way. I knew what you were saying before, it was just kinda…awkward. "He climbed out of the plothole to reveal a thoroughly drenched tye-died gi." See what I mean?

"That's usually how it is, with plotholes," Karen agreed as Katara used the water from the plothole to rescue Tui and La. "You never know what's going on. I once read a fic where there was this huge plothole, and I could never figure out where the Suethor got it from. Why she would think a Waterbender woman having a Firebender daughter while she's undercover in the Fire Nation would be a _bad_ thing is beyond me…"

"Suethors rarely make sense," Marshall Arts agreed.

* * *

Lupe shifted in her seat, trying to find a position that didn't make her legs threaten to fall asleep. The Spirit Hall was themed in blue and white, with swirling designs that vaguely resembled clouds or wisps of mist patterned on the walls and up the pillars lining the Hall. There were no actual seats, just cushions arranged on tiers. Several students had attempted to take a nap until it became painfully obvious that there would be no seats to spare, at which point a desperate battle for pillows resulted. Isabella Rose had decided that, as the Avatar, she deserved five cushions: four deprived students had taken offense at that, and wrestled her down before taking away all of the pillows. They'd only gotten four: one cushion was maimed beyond repair and utterly useless, so Isabella Rose was left with nothing between her and the metal floor.

"I don't wanna be a monk…" Lauphen was crying next to Lupe. She'd been told in a class called "Peaceful Air Nomads" that all Air Nomads were either monks or nuns, a fact that upset her greatly. It was still news to Lupe that the Avatar World _had_ monks and nuns. But it proved her theory that Christianity existed here as well! Ha! Take that, stupid reviewer who doesn't know what he's talking about! And of course Zuko would fall for the pious Twinkle Goldfire, Lupe's OC character.

"You'd be a nun," Lupe said, absent-mindedly patting Lauphen's shoulder. "Monks are guys. Nuns are girls."

"I don't care!" Lauphen sobbed. "I don't want to be one!"

"Imagine how I feel," Andy replied gloomily. "What if we have to take vows of celibacy or something? How will I live?" She looked around at the small group that had gathered off to one side of the Hall. "Well? How _would_ I live?"

"Very celibate-y, I'd say," [-] observed with a voice dripping sarcasm. "Meep, don't you agree with me?"

"Meep meep?" Meep Megdaline perked up at the mention of her name. [-] took that as an agreement, and nodded sagely. Meep returned her attention to nothing, and began to sing a song under her breath while using hand puppets to mimic out what the song was about. From what Lupe saw, there was a lot of talking.

The stomachs of all five students rumbled at almost exactly the same time. Lupe blushed, but the others didn't do much. Lunch for them had been a small bowl of rice consumed hastily around noon. One of the guards that walked the halls of the school-formerly-high-security-prison had told Lupe that it was nearly four. Supper was at five.

Well, Lupe thought it was five. It was the thing listed after this class, and the time symbol was two down from the three horizontal lines that Lupe was fairly sure meant three. She knew it was dinner because of the crude cookie scribbled next to the time. From what Lupe had witnessed, that was likely Karen-ese for "food time." Although, considering it was Karen, it could have been "target practice time." None of the students could read Chinese, and the guards had apparently decided to not read schedules to the fanbrats, so not many people were quite sure of what was going on.

From the stage (set behind a very deep trench and lined with barbed wire), or rather, behind the visible stage area, the very distinctive sound of an animal in distress could be heard. Several voices, all female, were talking and yelling at each other. One phrase managed to sound around the Hall: "This is why you don't just design buildings to look like stuff you like from above!" The buzz of conversation that had previously been all one could hear in the Hall gave way to general silence, save for a few people who hadn't noticed or didn't care that an instructor was coming.

After a few minutes, there was a cry of success ("Success!" "Stop trying to sound like Richard Roxborgh. It's not amusing."), and two women walked onto the stage, one carrying a huge fishbowl with two monochrome fish in it. One of the women had white hair, and was dressed in a rather impractical strapless dress with poofy, unattached sleeves. A circle with a weird design on it seemed to be hovering a few inches in front of her, with some fabric attached to it that was itself possibly attached to the back of her dress. The other woman was Karen.

Well, she looked like Karen. Same hair color, same eye color, same skin color. But she didn't have that coat on, the cool black one. Lupe was willing to admit the coat was sorta cool. So why wasn't Karen wearing it?

"Well, that was a fun tug-of-war!" Another Karen strode on stage. This one _was_ wearing her coat, and had a cookie in her hand. Clearly this was the real Karen. But if _she_ was Karen, who was the other woman?

"There's _TWO_ of them!" Lauphen screamed in horror after a moment. Someone repeated the phrase a bit louder, and panic began to descend. After just a day of class, everyone was fairly certain that one Karen was all the universe could handle.

"SILENCE!" Karen shouted, this time attempting a Dumbledore impression. It failed miserably, but the students took the hint. The Agent continued. "While I appreciate that you all love me enough to cry tears of joy at the thought of my having a clone or a twin, sadly, this is not the case." Every student in the Hall let out a breath of relief. "I'd like to introduce Agent Anjilly Ka, you can call her Agent or Miss Ka, but not Anjilly, and she'll hurt anyone but me who calls her Anj; my partner and fellow Course Coordinator. Please respect her as you would respect me, because she only just left the Department of Mary Sues and is still adjusting to the change of lifestyle."

"What's that supposed to mean?" William GP called from somewhere amongst the mass of students.

"It means," Anjilly began to tap her foot as she answered, "that I'm used to killing things that I don't like, not giving them detention." Lupe's eyes widened. She couldn't be serious. That wasn't allowed. Murder was illegal!

It should have been obvious to her by this point that at the Official Fanfiction University for Avatar: The Last Airbender, things that were illegal in the Real World were pretty commonplace.

"Don't worry, students," Karen laughed as she looked at the looks on the students' faces. Priceless. "Katara can always use the Spirit Oasis Water to bring you back to life, so you won't get to stay dead! You'll be right back to life, and classes, and homework, and the iron rule of two PPC Agents who hate your stories with a passion…"

Oddly enough, her words weren't all that reassuring.

The white-haired girl—Lupe had no idea who she was—coughed politely. Anjilly glanced at her, but Karen paid her absolutely no attention at all. "I'd also like to remind you all that you have dinner once this class is done," she continued cheerily. "Dinner will be the only time you'll be served food specific to the Nation you wrote on your registration form, because it's the most important meal of the day!"

"But we've already had lunch," a confused Somariel protested.

"Yes, I know this," Karen nodded. She paused. "It occurs to me that I should specify that when I say 'dinner,' I refer to the meal also known as 'supper.' You will never hear me calling lunch 'dinner.' I don't get why people use it for lunch and supper both, that's just confusing. My parents could never agree which it meant, and I just wound up using it for supper because it sounds right to me, but I can still never tell if my dad wants me to stop by for lunch or supper. He should be more specific…"

"Um, Karen?" The white-haired girl put a hand on the woman's shoulder. "I'd like to introduce myself now, please. May I?"

"Sure thing!" Karen grinned. "Everybody, this is the Moon Spirit Yue. In the fishbowl are Tui and La, the mortal forms of the Moon and Ocean Spirits. We're not sure which one is Tui and which one is La, because the show's got some really ambiguous wording, but never you mind!"

"Karen, she meant she wanted to do it _herself_," Anjilly hissed to her partner.

"Huh?" Karen's eyes widened in alarm. "Oh no! I'm so sorry, Yue! Here, have a cookie as—no, not that cookie, it sharpened nicely…here, have this cookie as an apology!" The Agent pulled a sugar cookie (unsharpened) from her coat pocket and pressed it into Yue's hand.

"Er…it's fine…" Yue squinted at the cookie in her hand. A few clumps of lint stood out from the pale yellow-white. If spirits had appetites, Yue had just lost hers.

"Well…that's these guys," Karen gestured to her companions on stage. "There's someone else too, but I'm not sure what's taking him so long—Hei Bai! Where did you get that?" There was a low animal noise from offstage left that sounded a bit like a moan. "Please, just put it back! I-I'll tell Suki you found it when I see her!"

A gigantic panda bear wandered onstage. Under normal circumstances, this would have been enough to warrant much staring and whispering and general rudeness. However, this panda had what looked like a bra on its head, although most of the Fire Nation females in the room figured it was just some girl's top. This might be a surprise, but a good deal of Firebender OCs didn't wear much clothing, the women especially.

Nobody said a word. Then Anjilly spoke, using a poker face that would have made Mai proud. "Nice hat

* * *

"Thus ends the first day of classes at OFUA:TLA," Karen sighed over-dramatically as she and Anjilly walked into the Staff Section. The lemurs guarding the doors allowed them by with only a sniff to assure them that these were, in fact, the Agents, and not students masquerading as Karen and Anjilly.

"What are they serving for supper? I'm famished," Anjilly moaned.

"For us? Steak and potatoes," Karen's mouth spread in a blissful smile. "I thank the spirits for Iroh. I thank them for him every day. He's been trying out Western recipes for when we don't feel like eating Asian food, or when we deserve a treat. The students are getting some traditional dishes native to their nation, though." The smile turned sinister.

"Um…" Anjilly hesitated. "Karen…do I want to know?"

"Want to know what?" Karen's eyes widened innocently. "That the students are being served Smoked Sea Slug and Stewed Sea Prunes? That's only the Fire Nation and Water Tribe students, though. I couldn't find anything suitably disgusting to give the Earth Kingdom and Air Nomad ones."

"Evil woman," Anjilly complimented. "Pakku and Hama are taking the Waterbenders out three hours after sunset, right?"

"Yup," Karen nodded. "They wanted to take Yue with them, but Sokka sort of promised to continue their Emotional Reunion after chow. Which reminds me, Suki is Not Pleased with that, and has decided for some reason that I'm to blame."

"You are the one who insisted Yue come and teach," Anjilly pointed out. "And weren't you muttering something about soap operas with an evil grin on your face the rest of that day?"

"…Maybe," Karen's eyes shifted back and forth across the hallway. "Anyways, mind helping me hide for a while?"

"Hide from Suki? A Kyoshi Warrior with a grudge?" Anjilly shuddered. "You're on your own."

"Hey! You know this institution wouldn't exist without months of work on my part!" Karen protested.

"You ditched for three days just before the students arrived to go visit your boyfriend at the International Academy of Hetalia Fanfiction," Anjilly reminded her. "I had to take care of all the paperwork, plus the new Misspellings. Do you know how annoying an artist in a tie-died _gi_ can get?"

"No, and I hope I never do," Karen shrugged.

"Karen!" Suki's voice drifted down the hall.

"Ah! It's Suki! Hide me!" the PPC Agent attempted to dive behind her partner, but Anjilly neatly sidestepped and continued walking like nothing had happened. "Traitor!"

Anjilly smirked over her shoulder as she left. "I told you, you're on your own. And look on the bright side. At least it's not _Azula_."


	9. Of Pets and Annoying Teapots

**I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender. **

**But then, you knew that, didn't you?**

**I'm still accepting applications, people! There's no guarantee you'll show up every chapter, but every other at least!**

* * *

Lupe stumbled into the Fire Hall, the doors of which were thankfully already open, and found a seat. She ached in places she hadn't known could feel pain. It had begun that morning, when the wake-up bell rang a few hours before dawn and the guards had started banging on doors to get people up. The training exercises had been murder—Lupe'd had the presence of mind to bring her swords with her today, and some instructor named Piandao had made her practice pulling them out of their sheath. He'd said it was completely necessary, but Lupe figured he was just holding her back from revealing what a prodigy she was and surpassing him in mere days.

[-] sauntered over and took a seat next to Lupe. Well, "saunter" was probably what he was going for, but it looked more like a pained limp. He'd apparently put down a sword hilt as a weapon, thinking he could Firebend a blade for it to create lightsaber-like effect. The only problem with his thinking was that he first needed to learn how to Firebend well enough to pull that trick off. When Karen had randomly appeared during training and declared that she would duel him, it hadn't been pretty. He'd lasted all of two-point-four seconds. Lupe knew this because Meep had timed the fight in her head somehow.

Well, at least [-] wasn't the only one limping. Danish the Awesome, a Water Tribe student who kept insisting she was really from the Earth Kingdom, had proudly challenged Karen after [-]'s pitiful defeat. She had then pulled out her weaponry…sharpened chocolate chip cookies.

Karen's reaction was…scary. Her eyes had widened in shock for a moment, and Danish had seemed to read that as fear because she fired off some comment about being Karen's superior in cookie combat. Those words were soon regretted, as Karen had barraged the poor girl with an onslaught of rock-hard cookies while screaming something about copycats. One phrase stuck out quite clearly in Lupe's mind—"I am the only true Cookie Warrior!" It made one wonder where the Cookie Monster fit into things. After Karen left Danish lying beneath a pile of cookie crumbs, the hapless student had been dragged off by Mai, who had been completely unimpressed by Danish's throwing skills.

Back to class. [-] had collapsed into the seat next to Lupe, and was rubbing his head. "I think it's a bad thing that I don't remember a thing from Basic Canon earlier," he commented to the younger girl. "Memory loss _is_ bad, right? I can't remember if it is or isn't…actually, I can't remember a lot of things right now…"

"Bad," Meep answered him, taking a seat on his other side. "Memory loss is perfectly normal in older folks, but you're still in your early twenties. In your case, it could be evidence of brain damage, recurring meningitis or epilepsy, constant drug use, or the result of a stroke. You haven't had a stroke, had you?" Meep leaned in so that her nose was brushing [-]'s. "Hm…you look like you have full control of both sides of your body…"

"Uhhh…" [-]'s eyes were flickering around, looking for a way out. Lupe giggled at his uneasiness, but leaned over him to talk to Meep.

"Nice to see you're back, but give him some personal space," she said.

"Back? I went somewhere?" Meep tilted her head, but her eyes remained open and unblinking. It was a look one might expect from a creepy character in a horror film, but not from a pretty girl of Meep's age.

"You were…" Lupe began to remind Meep how she'd been rather…well, not all there lately, but she wound up just trailing off. Meep was so creepy with that look… "Just…never mind. I'm clearly mistaken."

"Okay," Meep shrugged, and she reached into the small book bag slung over her shoulder. Everyone had woken up to find those book bags in their rooms, with no explanation as to how they got there without anyone noticing. Lauphen had decided the teaching staff was secretly trying to turn them all into tomatoes in their sleep, but their methods had backfired and resulted in the bookbags—which were, incidentally, coordinated with each student's uniform, with the straps at the perfect length for every student's height, not to mention non-adjustable—appearing instead. So far, only Meep bought it.

Well, at least some people could carry their weapons around in them. [-]'s sword hilt was small enough to fit without taking up space for the scrolls—likely textbooks—inside. Meep's weapons—small thorned needles without a grip, were rolling around inside her bag and making retrieving anything at the bottom likely to be a painful experience.

Lupe raised one arm to scratch her ear, but couldn't get it past her chest before it fell back down again. All right, so she was a little tired, but those swords were heavy! She'd decided they looked cooler slung over her back than they would have anywhere else, but that meant when she was pulling them out she had to lift them into the air before lowering them. That Piandao guy had told Lupe she was lucky the blades had been dulled before she was allowed to have them, because her tendency to rest them against her shoulder when drawing them would have cut her to pieces if they were sharp. Like he knew anything about swords! He was probably some wanna-be old guard, a throwaway character from the series, who showed up in one of the episodes Lupe hadn't watched. Which was, well, most of them.

"Seriously, what did we do in Basic Canon?" [-] asked again.

"We watched the first five episodes of Season One," Lupe yawned, forgetting until the last second to cover her mouth. "Our teachers say it'll take about three weeks to get through the entire series if we use Mondays for discussion. And Allie Doyle tried to tackle-hug Bumi, but was stopped by King Boomie and Bhumi. Plus some Earth Kingdom student vanished in the middle of the fourth episode."

"I loved the first episodes," Meep added. "I've been watching the series since the start. It's really nice that we get to see it again here."

"Oh…it was my first time seeing them," Lupe admitted. She felt herself flush a little, though she didn't know why. So she hadn't seen a few…well, okay, _most_ of the episodes. So what? It's not like she couldn't get all she needed to write the characters off of other people's fanfictions. Or fanart. Mm, fanart. Lupe really needed to get some Zutara fanart if she was gonna be here for a whole year.

"Huh? It was?" Meep stared at Lupe in that creepy way again. "Why didn't you see it before?"

"Never felt the need," Lupe shrugged uneasily. "Uh, looks like we're starting."

Sure enough, a group of canon characters were walking onto the stage of the Fire Hall. Lupe recognized Aang, but not the middle-aged man in green beside him, or the girl younger than Lupe in a long Japanese dress-thingy (kimoto, right? It was a kimoto?). Several of the other students seemed to know her, though, because an ominous murmur swept through the crowd of students. Next to Lupe, [-] gave an angered growl.

Then Anjilly walked onstage, silencing the noise. At least, Lupe thought it was Anjilly, because without Karen around to be, well, _Karen_, it was hard to tell if it really was Anjilly or just Karen in a weird mood without her awesome coat. Maybe Lupe could get an awesome coat like that too…

"Attention, students," Anjilly called. "Welcome to Bestiology and You. This class is dedicated to teaching you about the rare and unique animals found in the universe of the Avatar world, as well as give you some information concerning the recurring phenomenon of Cute Animal Friends. In this class, you will learn the importance of animals in your work and come to appreciate the time and care it takes to maintain a pet or riding animals. You…uh…you…" She snuck some notecards out of a pocket, and discarded a few before reading off of one. "You will now be asked to identify the animal you wrote on your registration form to bring with you. If you did not choose to bring an animal, your life will be much easier without needing to feed, bathe, and all-around care for something that'll puke all over your floor and be a lump in the worst possible places and…" Anjilly trailed off with a frown. She rifled through the rest of her notecards, and sighed. "Very funny, Kari, replacing my notecards with your own versions. This is why I was memorizing them…let's see…oh, they're here. Okay everyone, grab your beast."

At Anjilly's words, a horde of animals stampeded into the Fire Hall with a concerted amount of grunting, snuffling, barking, meowing, yowling, and screaming. The students got up from their seats and began looking for their pet—or, in the case of those without pets, to avoid being trampled by the horde of animals.

"Reggae!" Isabella Rose cried in delight, scooping up a bundle of white and black fur. "Hi there, baby! Momma's got you now, yes, I was wondering where you were…"

"Gerald!" Jessica Carden picked up a rat. "Excellent. We'll have to figure out where the air ducts are, but you should be spying on the staff—especially Zuko—in no time! Now, where's that portable mini-camera harness of yours…?"

Daniel Clemens was tackled by a huge golden retriever. "Skippy, it's you!" He grinned as it began to bathe his face thoroughly with its tongue. "I was wondering where you were hiding!"

"Ow!" Somariel complained as a large horse bumped its nose against her cheek. "No, I didn't bring a pet, I'm not your master…there, that kid, he's trying to reach you, go to him…" The horse plowed its way through a mass of fur, scales, and amphibious skin to affectionately nuzzle a young Fire Nation student. "William, look out!" Somariel cried. "That ostrich is about to get your—oh, too late…poor guy…" William GP, meanwhile, was cursing the student who had thought bringing an ostrich would be funny while thanking his deity of choice that he hadn't wanted a pet during his stay at OFUA:TLA.

"Aww, my kitties!" Fyre Elaine picked up two cats. At least, Lupe thought they were cats. Their fur was sticking out at odd angles, and there was a crazed mass-murderer look to their eyes that wasn't very catlike. "Lily, Sophie, how're my babies?" One of the cats responded by latching onto Fyre Elaine's neck vampire-style. "Ow! No, Sophie, dear, I'm not for eating…"

"Look!" Meep's voice blasted into Lupe's ear as a reddish-brown lump of fur with red eyes was pushed into Lupe's face. "It's my Royroy!" Royroy squeaked in terror, and Lupe started as a small shock hit her nose.

"Ow! Wh-what was that?" Lupe yelped, jerking her face back. Royroy squeaked again, and a crackle of blue-white sparks rippled over his fur. "Meep, your thing's shorting out!"

"Royroy's not a thing, he's a rat!" Meep defended her pet indignantly. She brought him close to her cheek and began to stroke his fur. "And I sorta wrote on my application that he can Firebend lightning. Didn't think they'd actually let him do it. Guess that's crack fanfiction for you, isn't it?"

"What?" Lupe frowned, but [-] was talking over her.

"Ha! Suckers!" He gloated, gesturing to the majority of the students in the Fire Hall. "See them, Lupe? Laugh at them. Laugh long and hard. While they will be stuck caring for many and varied beasts, we shall have free time! Meep, you've got a small thing and it looks pretty tame, so I don't think you count as one of those fools. Laugh with me! Fahahahaha!"

"MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Meep bellowed just as everyone else noticed Anjilly's furious gesturing silence and complied. The girl's rather impressive evil laugh resounded for half a minute in the acoustically-perfect Fire Hall (not designed by Karen) before fading away. Everyone turned to stare. Meep, not giving a sign that she noticed, settled into her seat.

"Uh…please don't do that again," Anjilly requested before returning to business. "Now, you will have to care for your pet's every need—and we do need mean every. If your pet is hungry, you will obtain proper food. If your pet is thirsty, you will get some water. If your pet is lonely, you will play with your pet, so far as your workload and class schedules will permit. Animals need exercise, so you must walk your pet at least once a day. We will have several night shift guards going around an hour before weapons training each morning to wake up those of you whose pets can be walked. Should your pet double as a ride, you will find appropriate tack and harnesses in your rooms when you wake up tomorrow. Riding animals will need to be ridden, and if you do not know how, Aang will be available in the training area after dinner most days to get you started."

Lupe saw the student with the ostrich wince. He was just barely avoiding having it attack his hair. And it _was_ big enough to ride.

Anjilly continued to speak, eyes screwed shut in concentration as she tried to finish. "This class will be taught by Avatar Aang, his associate Kenji, the Zookeeper of the Ba Sing Se Zoo, and his friend Suki, an expert on large sea creatures."

"Hey!" Suki interrupted. "How many times do I have to _tell_ you people, just because I _live_ near the Unagi…!"

"Sh! She's not done!" Aang quieted his friend.

"Ahem!" Anjilly coughed to redraw attention to her. "Your pets will need to be present in class every third Thursday so that we may use their presence to discuss the difficulties and benefits of having an animal companion. Every other class day will be dedicated to the study of the wondrous creatures of the Avatar world. At that, I leave the class to Aang and the Zookeeper." The former assassin beat a hasty retreat, clearly glad to be going. Aang stepped forward.

"All right, everyone," he smiled at them. "Let's start with figuring out what kinds of animal foods we'll feed your pets."

* * *

Andy Roseanne reclined in her seat alongside her fellow Airbender students, wondering when the class would start already. Platonic Love, she heard…what was that, exactly? Love, she got that, but platonic? Oh well, she'd learn soon enough. Hopefully it had to do with wicked acts of passion.

Somehow, Lauphen had convinced Ari Mason to have a staff fight while waiting for class. Andy giggled at the mental innuendos, debated speaking them, and decided not to. Lauphen wouldn't notice or care, but Ari seemed like the sort to take offense, and if she took offense she couldn't exactly be seduced later on, now could she?

"Zuko!" someone squealed. Andy looked up to see Zuko and Sokka walk onstage. Ooh, maybe this class would feature some live-action boy-on-boy porn…

Nobody stampeded, thank goodness; news of the Fire Nation, Earth Kingdom, and Water Tribe girls' damage was well-known throughout campus. Besides, most Airbender girls chose that element because they wanted to get into Aang's pants, not some yummy Fire Nation prince's, or a cute Water Tribe boy's.

Zuko and Sokka set up shop, fiddling with the projector and its screen before managing to activate it. Sokka picked up a clicker, and an image of a heart appeared onscreen. Several girls sighed. Andy perked up. This was promising.

"Platonic Love," Sokka spoke. His tongue stumbled over the words a bit, but he got it in order and kept going. "This class will explore the many faces of platonic love. Because it is platonic. And, uh, because platonic love is—"

"Let me," Zuko sighed, taking the clicker away from Sokka. Andy felt a slow smile cross over her face as she looked at Zuko. Mm, hot Fire Nation prince. "Now, this class is dedicated to the study of Platonic Love. What is platonic love?" Well, they couldn't get to the good stuff without you telling, now could they? "Platonic love is love without any sexual or romantic aspects whatsoever."

Andy frowned. What the hell did that mean? It was a complete contradiction!

"Platonic love includes friendship, sibling love, overall familial love, and many more topics," Zuko pressed a button on the clicker, and a new image—one of a stereotypical family—appeared onscreen. "In itself, platonic love can be a beautiful thing. You must learn in this class how to realize when two characters have only platonic love for each other, and just why that platonic love should sometimes be left alone." He paused, and added, "I'm talking about Zutara, students."

"BUT IT'S MEANT TO BE!" About half the class screamed—all girls, mostly Aanglers wanting Katara out of the way so they could get Aang for themselves.

"If it was meant to be, it would be canon," Zuko snapped at them. "Sokka, help me out here!"

"Then are you two together?" Andy called out coyly. Everyone went silent. Several girls got dreamy looks on their faces. Zuko and Sokka exchanged an unreadable look, then nodded. Andy gasped with glee. "You _are_?"

"No," Sokka shook his head, "but we now know who the lemurs will be practicing their knife-throwing with."

* * *

Sunan shifted uncomfortably in his ice seat, trying to keep his bare legs from coming into contact with the frozen water. The one thing he regretted in choosing to be a Foggy Swamp Waterbender was that he was not allowed pants. Several Water Tribe students, all girls, glanced at him and snickered. He guessed it was at his underwear, which was at least his favorite pair from home. Hot pink, with neon green hearts.

…Well, yes, he was commonly told he had no sense of color coordination, or a fashion sense. Why do you ask?

An Earth Kingdom student took the seat next to Sunan, squirming in an attempt to keep the cold from seeping through the thin fabric of his uniform pants.

"The seats will melt half an hour in, and we'll be able to sit on the floor," Sunan informed the boy. He looked to be a few years younger than Sunan, although the older student wasn't the best at judging age.

"But the floor's metal," the boy pointed out, glancing down distastefully. "Won't it be cold from the ice? And…where are your pants?"

"I'm a Foggy Swamp Waterbender, so I can't wear pants. Why, is it weird or something?" Sunan glanced down at his legs. Inch-long black hairs stuck out at odd angles in the cool air. "At least I have underwear still."

The conversation lapsed, allowing them to hear a loud discussion several rows ahead between Amy Ochanian, Elise, and Cyrus Windfall about the disappearance of one of their fellow Earth Kingdom students.

"Seriously, it's über-freaky that she just disappeared like that, in the middle of class," Amy Ochanian shivered. "I know Anjilly said she would start a search, but that was back in Basic Canon and now it's nearly dinnertime! Have they even done anything since then?"

"Um, I'm pretty sure I saw Karen poking around in the student dorms earlier," Cyrus offered. "She was muttering something about Suki and bad tangerines and terrible fishing, but she could have just been talking to herself while looking for Mai4."

"Why are we even worried about this? It's Mai4, she can probably take care of herself," Elise scoffed. "Didn't you see her at weapons practice this morning? I'm kinda scared at what she can do with that butter knife…"

"You'd think she's practiced it before," Amy agreed. "And that sledgehammer…"

"Let's not discuss the sledgehammer. I think I'll have nightmares," Cyrus slid down a bit in his seat. "But at least she didn't think she could take on Karen."

"Yeah, poor [-]…" Amy paused. "It's weird how I know _what_ I'm saying, but I'm not actually _saying_ it. [-]. [-]. See? Weird."

"I was actually talking about Danish," Cyrus replied. "She only just got out of the Healer's Wing." Danish was, at present, sulking in a corner because when she insisted she needed to be with the Earth Kingdom students Toph had laughed. And laughed. And then laughed some more. Allison Doyle and Carsten D had gotten similar treatment at training, when they tried to impress their favorite blind Earthbender with their rudimentary Waterbending. They were indulging in similar sulking in their own corners.

Suddenly, Zerkz heard a whistling sound, and an arrow skimmed over his head. "What the—?" He gasped, attempting to complete a full body turn while sitting down. The result was him slipping off his seat and hurting something in his back.

"Sorry!" Vera "V" Moretti called. "I can barely see anything with this mask on!" She waved an arrow in front of her eyes to prove the point, and only the Guy Fawkes mask she was wearing prevented her from stabbing herself in the face.

"I'd say that's pretty obvious," Moon Dragon laughed. She managed to draw her butterfly swords without hurting herself, though Ashee Bieber had to throw herself on the floor to avoid a beheading. Nathaniel Willowshaunt was next to avoid a fatal wound as Moon Dragon attempted to pull out a kukri while her hands were still full with the swords—he wound up with an uneven haircut, because he was a bit slow to duck.

"Pardon me, but what are you two doing?" Sunan had turned himself around in his seat without sustaining a back injury, and was looking at the two curiously.

"Scarlet Johnson bet us five bucks each we couldn't impress Sokka with our fighting skills," Vera answered. She could have been smiling—she definitely sounded like she was smiling—but with the mask covering her face, it was hard to tell. "And then Isabella Rose said she'd raise the bet by ten dollars if we could manage to get a few hits in on Suki, and Owlson Pierce was talking about how Suki taught the Fire Nation students' Bestiology and You, so we figure we can get her then."

"Forget it!" Zerkz had managed by now to pick himself up off the floor, and was glaring at the two girls. "Suki's a warrior woman, you can't land a blow on her with those crappy fighting skills!"

"Oh please, she's _such_ a Mary Sue," Ashee Bieber sneered.

"She is not!" Zerkz protested, gritting his teeth. "Suki is a smart, strong, intelligent girl who worked hard to get to the skill level she was at in the show. If you actually bothered to pay attention to the show at all, you'd realize that!"

Ashee's "Pfft, right" was cut off by the doors being thrown open in a completely cliché and over-dramatic style.

"I never get tired of that!" Karen cackled as a young guard pressed "play" on the boombox he was holding. William Tell's "Overture" began to play. "Wrong track, Lee. Go for number eighteen." The guard fiddled with several buttons, and a full symphony of Shostakovich began to play. "Better."

"Thank you, ma'am." Lee bowed his head.

"So," Karen looked at the students in the hall. "I'm looking for Marvin Tong, also known as Mai4—I'm not sure how I just pronounced a numeral, but it's awesome that I can, isn't it?—and I thought perhaps she could be in here. Well, since I'm not seeing a short Asian kid with braces and abnormally large hands—her description, not mine—I'll just be off." The woman turned around and walked away, Lee the guard following.

"…She's kinda weird, isn't she?" Vera strung an arrow. "All right! Lessee, I think they'll be coming in from the right…"

"By the way, Suki doesn't like being shot at," Karen poked her head around the door. Lee the guard ran back into view, the boombox he was holding still playing dramatic classical music. "No more than she likes having dead/turned-into-a-spirit love rivals brought back into her boyfriend's life. And if she asks, I was never here. Enjoy your beasts—I mean, pets." And Karen was gone again.

The students were silent for a minute, wondering if she would appear again. Finally Ashee spoke. "Geez, just how freaking crazy is—"

"BOW TO THE COOKIE LORD!" Karen shouted, again popping her head around the door. Ashee, as well as Danish, Moon Dragon, Vera, Elise, and Amy, screamed. "Sorry, had to. Carry on."

Never let it be said that an Official Fanfiction University is staffed by sane and competent human beings. Because even if they were, the "sane" part wouldn't last long.

* * *

"Hey, Iroh?" Karen poked her head into the staff's resting room. "Minor problem."

"What is it?" Iroh asked, pouring himself another cup of tea. Some of the hot liquid splashed onto his hand, and he winced. When he put the teapot down on a table, it rocked ominously until he added a few plates around it to keep it from tipping over. Such an annoying teapot it was…

"We seem to be missing one of the students," Karen confessed. "Marvin Tong—er, Mai4. Nobody's seen her. I was wondering if you had any wisdom to share."

"Honestly, I'm not sure I do," Iroh picked up his tea and took a sip. It had acquired some sort of odd taste, likely from the teapot. "A student disappearing from an Official Fanfiction University would normally be thought of as the beginning of some cheap author's plot to start involving action into the storyline. But I'm sure this university is different."

"Um. Heh. Yeah," Karen Elaine DuLay coughed. "So, missing student. Any ideas where she might be?"

"How about right here?" a surly voice came from the vicinity of the table. Iroh turned to it, puzzled. He looked underneath—nobody. Only he was in the room, with Karen in the only doorway. So where was that voice coming from…? "No, I'm on the table!"

"Hm?" Iroh's brow creased as he began to inspect the plates of food. Could the student have been somehow transformed into a dish? Oh dear, he hoped he hadn't eaten part of her before now…

"No, I'm the teapot!" the student exclaimed. Yes, the voice was definitely coming from the teapot. Iroh raised his cup to his lips for a calming sip before it occurred to him that it might be a bad idea. "I was a normal human before, and I had class with everybody else yesterday, Amy and Elise were really nice to me, but for some reason when I was in Basic Canon I got sent through this thing hovering invisible in the air and…I turned into a teapot. An annoying teapot, like I wrote on my application."

"Plothole," Karen muttered finally. "You hit a plothole. Marshall Arts's been wandering into them ever since he turned up. I should probably warn the students about the chaos the plotholes can wreak…nah. Let 'em learn on their own what a plothole does to a story. Learning through pain is an OFU tradition, after all… Uh, Iroh? How do we turn her back?"

No sooner did the words leave Karen's lips than the teapot on the table suddenly and inexplicably became a human female. "Again!" she exclaimed, clutching her head. "It happened again! That whitchamicallit…a plothole! What the heck are they?"

"Oh, just the result of authors being too lazy to explain why or how an event happens," Karen answered. "They show up when something is put into a story for no known reason, or left out on a similar charge. Friendships with canon characters that are both unlikely to ever happen or seem to be contradictory to the story, or both, make them too. Lots of ways to get a plothole, actually…it's like baking cookies. You have a bunch of different ingredients, and you can add in whatever you like, and some make for entertaining and delicious plothole cookies than an author can exploit for cheap laughs, while others make for disgusting and overcooked plothole cookies that are hard at rocks and are only good for throwing at Mary Sues. I don't like Mary Sues. They're non-canon. And I like canon. I like canon a lot, though not to the creeperish level that some people"—she had a sudden coughing fit that sounded suspiciously like "Andy Roseanne"—"would take it to. Maybe I should—"

"We understand, Karen," Iroh hastily stopped the agent. "Ms. Tong, you may return to your schedule. There is still time for you to attend the Bestiology and You class. Your pet from your registration will be there."

"Oh," Mai4 sighed. Once the initial confusion from her sudden plothole-induced return to humanity had worn off, the Asian girl's expression had slipped into a very Mai-like poker face. "I should probably go. My panda will be there. Not much else to say, he's a panda…yeah." She slid off the table, knocking several dishes to the floor. "Later."

Karen stepped aside to allow the girl to leave, then eyed the mess on the floor. "I didn't do that," she warned Iroh, "so I won't be cleaning it up."

"I'll call the cleaning crew," Iroh said. "Aren't you supposed to be helping Anjilly sort through badfics for tomorrow's class…? Or are you ditching work?"

"Actually, I'm not ditching on purpose," Karen admitted. "Though it's pretty sweet that I have a legitimate excuse for ditching _this_ time. No, my dear Iroh, I am attempting to hide from Suki, and in my many failed attempts to do so I overheard Anj talking to a guard about a missing student, so I figured it would be a good excuse to run around and avoid the angry Kyoshi Warrior out for my blood."

"With Ms. Tong returned to normal, I would say your excuse is gone," Iroh pointed out. Karen's face fell.

"Karen!" Suki's voice floated through the doorway to reach Iroh's ears. "Where are you?" Karen winced.

"Do you think, if I throw another plothole at the teapot chick, I can pretend to be looking for a mystical cure?" She asked Iroh desperately.

"At this point," Iroh answered ominously, "I fear not even the pitiful attempts of a crackfic author could work. For Suki is standing right behind you."

"There you are!" Suki glared at the startled agent. "We have a few things to talk about…"

Iroh went over to a bookcase and pressed a panel in the wood, revealing a secret hallway. He had to teach the "Fire Nation Military" class with Zhao and Jeong Jeong in half an hour, and the two girls were blocking the door. Something told him getting past them would be a difficult business, and that intervening between the two would not be a good idea. The old general slipped into the hidden passage and made his way towards the other end.

"I…can…explain…everything?" Karen chuckled nervously. Suki's face told her the Kyoshi Warrior didn't buy it. Plan Y time. "Er…is that Yue I see, with…a fish on her head?"

Plan Y failed as well.

But just when Karen was sure she was going to get walloped by a pair of fans, she was saved by a sudden onslaught of students, whose presences were undoubtedly due to a plothole.

"THERE SHE IS!" Vera Moretti shouted, bursting through the door.

"FOR TOKKA!" Ashee Bieber shrieked, following right behind. She executed a very poor water whip in Suki's direction, only managing to splash the Kyoshi Warrior's boots. Vera fired an arrow, missing Suki and nearly hitting Karen. The only thing that saved the PPC agent were catlike reflexes honed by many years of sugar highs and an expertly-wielded chocolate chip shuriken.

Suki, meanwhile, was about to take on Ashee with her fans, but was saved the trouble when the Tokka fangirl was suddenly tackled from behind.

"LEAVE SUKI ALONE!" Zerkz shouted.

"SHE'S A STUPID MARY-SUE!" Ashee retorted, splashing him with water.

At that moment, Sukki, sukki, Sukis, and Zuki dive-bombed the students, latching on to their faces and pulling their hair.

Karen took the opportunity to duck into a nearby plothole, where she bumped into Marshall Arts. "Hey, Marshall! What're you doing here?"

He shrugged. "I just fell in here. What are you doing here?"

"Escaping from Suki. Thank goodness those students distracted her. Otherwise I might've never gotten away! Ah, the joys of plotholes...well, no, plotholes aren't always joys, but in extreme situations such as this they are..."

Marshall Arts raised an eyebrow. "You left a canon character to fend for herself against students?"

"Pfft," Karen said, waving her hand. "She's got the lemurs to protect her. If she even needs protection at all. It's Suki!"

"Indeed," said Marshall. "Now, how do we get out of here?"

"Hmm," said Karen. "Would you say it would be _convenient_ for us to get out of here?"

"Well, of course—"

And just that like, that plothole spit them out onto the metal floor.

"Ta-da!" said Karen. "See? It's all about convenience!"

"I'll say," said another voice, and a pair of boots walked into Karen's line of vision. She looked up to see who they were attached to.

"…Hi Anj."

"Karen," Anjilly said. "Are you ready to help me sort through those badfics?"

* * *

**Plotholes are not always convenient. Great thanks to the dearest Caelum Blue, who beta'd for me!**


	10. Of Mary Sues and Occasional Homesickness

**Hola, everyone! I know it's been a while...over a month...since the last chapter, and both I and Caelum apologize profusely for the delay. Caelum's work schedule has her pretty much dropping off the face of the earth every week or so, so collaborating on editing and content and such is somewhat difficult. So, our sincerest apologies about the delay!**

**Also, with this chapter, I am declaring registration for OFUA:TLA closed. We will not be accepting any new students. It is up to me and Anj if we will accept more students or not for the second semester, and we will tell you when that semester arrives.**

**Until then, please enjoy this chapter of the Official Fanfiction University of Avatar: The Last Airbender. Note that neither I nor Caelum Blue, my lovely beta and cowriter, own the series: we are merely devoted fans seeking to improve the fandom and entertain the masses.**

* * *

On the morning of the third day of classes of OFUA:TLA, after being woken up even earlier than usual by the pet owners trying to get their various animals to cooperate during the early-morning walk, then being subjected to a grueling round of Firebending control and muscle strengthening workouts, followed by practicing pulling two heavy swords off her back without touching herself with them, refusing to eat the pickled vegetables offered for lunch, and learning about Omashu, a Fire Nation prison, and a double episode about spirits and stuff with barely a hint of Zutara…Lupe was dead on her feet. Run-on sentences tend to tire people out, after all.

Her head nodded as she waited for the next set of teachers to show up. Iroh had left a while ago with Pakku and Bumi, whispering amongst themselves about some drama going on with the staff. Gran-Gran had started a discussion with Gyatso about "young people these days" in the middle of class, and they had wandered off to find their respective charges and compare difficulties. Now whoever was supposed to teach this next class, whatever it was, was late. Late late late.

Meep was talking with Lauphen on one side of Lupe, and [-] on the other side was taking the opportunity to nap. In front of Lupe, a bunch of Water Tribe students were arguing about which characters were hottest. Having nothing else to do, Lupe was eavesdropping. Well, she wasn't trying to eavesdrop, her ears had just tuned into the conversation and never tuned out.

"Iroh is totally the best character," Allison Doyle insisted. "He's got that wise old man thing going on. Plus, please, don't act like old grandpa sorts aren't hot."

"Fools! Clearly Sokka is the most attractive!" Isabella waved a hand dismissively. She was technically a Fire Nation student, but as she'd claimed to be half Water Tribe on her application, she was also attending every class the Water Tribe students had, even if that meant she was taking twice the amount of some classes than everyone else. Rumor had it that, because she had written she was the Avatar, she would be getting even more classes once Karen got around to thinking them up.

"Don't make me set Pete on you!" Vera V Moretti snapped, stroking her pet capybara. "Iroh rules! And you know it!"

"But Azula and Toph are badass!" Carsten D argued. "They're awesome female characters who kick butt!"

"Nu-uh! Aangy's the hottest of the hot!" Danish, still sporting bruises from her cookie duel with Karen a day ago, glared at the other girls. "He's the last of his kind! Soooo much tragedy and hot angsting!"

"I fail to see why any of you would care about this," Moon Dragon sighed from the midst of the conflict. "How did we get from 'complaining about the food' to 'which character is most attractive' anyways?"

"Don't act like you're not interested in anybody!" Isabella Rose scolded. "Asexual my butt, I saw you drooling over Sokka the first day!"

"W-was not!" Moon Dragon protested, cheeks coloring a light pink.

"I'd say I'm stuck between Zuko and Sokka," Nathaniel Willowshaunt put in thoughtfully. "I mean, Zuko's the hot angsting prince, but Sokka's the rugged warrior who supported a whole tribe with his hunting abilities before leaving to help Aang. Plus, you know how it gets when you've got opposites…they just attract…"

"Why would a guy think other guys are hot? Go drool over that Mary-Sue Suki," Ashee Bieber said through sticky lips, rolling her eyes. She had made the unfortunate mistake of writing on her application that her lips were cotton-candy pink, and was now stuck looking like she had just finished a bag of the spun sugary delight. Andy Roseanne had insinuated earlier that day that her lips probably tasted like cotton candy too, but that had resulted in Ashee screaming and running off. "Anyways, everybody knows Zuko's hottest. No question. And I just know that he's totally into me." The part about Zuko's hotness was true, but Lupe knew Zuko would never go for a blonde with purple-streaked hair. Who put purple in their hair these days?

"Shh, I think we're starting," Daniel Clemens hissed from the row before the Water Tribe girls. Sure enough, Karen and Anjilly were walking onstage. For some reason unknown to Lupe, Karen's hair wasn't in its usual ponytail, and it looked like a lemur had tried to kill it. Though, it made it easier to distinguish between the two women who, for all intents and purposes, looked exactly the same because they had brown hair that they kept in ponytails.

"Students! Welcome to class!" Karen proclaimed, arms spreading out wide. "This is going to be one of the most important classes you have, as it does not apply to just Avatar: The Last Airbender fanfiction, but also to every other fiction story, fan or otherwise, you will ever write. What, you may ask, could this amazing and wondrous class be? I know you're thinking it because you're all staring at me like you want to eat something."

"That, or they refused to eat their breakfast and want your cookie," Anjilly interjected. Karen shot her a superior look and stuffed the entire cookie into her mouth. Since the cookie was a bit bigger than her mouth, crumbs spilled across the stage floor while Karen tried to stuff the baked goodie down her throat. The students let out a low groan.

"Hmp! Mm mphfmm ffhm fhu!" Karen crowed through her mouthful.

"Don't talk with your mouth full," Anjilly sighed. Karen swallowed, winced, clutched at her throat and gagged slightly, then gasped for breath and tried again.

"Ha! No cookie for you!" she repeated, ending with a fit of coughing. "Ugh…Anj, why did you let me do that?"

"I didn't. You just shoved it into your mouth," Anjilly rolled her eyes. "Back to the class, Karen. Remember, the class? We're teaching it? You'd been really excited about it up until we had to start going through badfics to find shining examples, at which point you began to pretend you thought you were a turnip and went looking for a missing student to get out of it?"

"Oh yeah!" Karen brightened. "Okay, guess what class this is? It's 'Creating Your Character,' a weekly class about how to make a believable, well-rounded, non-Sue original characters. And we're going to start this class with an intensive look at the scourge of the Plot Continuum, the Mary Sue! MOOMOO, GET THE LIGHTS!"

Moomoo, who had been waiting with the other lemurs, took flight. He glided past the torches on the walls, the wind in his wake blowing them out. Everything in the students' section of the hall went dim, and a huge screen lowered behind Karen and Anjilly onstage. Karen had struck a pose when telling Moomoo to put out the lights, and now relaxed it to start pacing across the stage. A shaft of light came out of a shadowy spot near the top of the back wall, hitting the screen squarely, and a slide show began. On the screen, a beautiful girl with a tremendous rack and a disproportionately thin body was frolicking in a field with a vaguely defined but likely attractive male.

"The Mary Sue is the perfect character," Karen spoke ominously, voice actually serious. Lupe blinked. "Karen" and "serious" were two words you wouldn't expect to use in the same sentence. Unless the word "not" was between them. But the cookiephile was continuing, so Lupe might as well listen. "She cannot fail, she cannot be anything other than the center of everyone's attention, and she is always the epitome of feminine grace and beauty. Sound familiar?"

Lupe's mind immediately jumped to her original character Twinkle Goldfire. An amazingly beautiful blond bombshell, Twinkle was not only a Firebender but also a Lightbender. She mysteriously showed up on Zuko's ship one day, dazzling him with her beauty and unmatched fighting skills, then went on to convince him to switch to the side of good and join Aang while they experienced a breathtaking romance.

But of course, Twinkle wasn't a Mary Sue. She couldn't be, because Lupe knew she was a good writer.

"There is also Mary-Sue's male counterpart, Gary-Stu," said Anjilly, and the slide changed to show an amazingly buff, shirtless young man standing in a dramatic pose in front of a bunch of explosions, armed with an entire armory's worth of weapons, and paying no attention to the hot chick clinging to his shoulder. "Or Marty-Sam, or whatever you want to call him. I prefer Gary-Stu because it rhymes with Mary-Sue. As with Mary-Sue, Gary-Stu is a perfect character. If he's acting as a self-insert character, he tends to have BAMF traits and constantly one-up the rest of the cast. If he's acting as a love interest for Mary Sue, he tends to be hopelessly sappy and romantic. Stus are nowhere near as prevalent as Sues, thank goodness, but it's still important to be informed about them."

"The Mary Sue and Gary Stu are, in essence, a way for writers to fulfill their own fantasies by inserting a character that represents them into a story. Sues and Stus are most easily identified by their habits of warping canon characters' personalities, bashing the canon characters they don't like, forcing 'twu luv' between themselves and canon characters—oftentimes breaking up canon relationships to do so—causing ill turns to occur to their rivals simply to get them out of the way or make the Sue or Stu look awesomer, trampling the ideals of the original story, and twisting the geography and timeline to suit their needs."

"There is a reason why many people dislike reading Sue or Stu stories," Anjilly took over. "The Mary Sue and Gary Stu have it easy—everything comes to them with barely a snap of their fingers in their fics, while the canon characters actually had to fight and struggle to get to where they are. Those struggles are what make the canon story interesting. Sue- and Stufics, on the other hand, aren't. When you have a Sue or Stu for a main character, the story becomes…boring. Where's the excitement in a perfect character, when they don't have to put any effort into improving themselves? And especially when they have no regard whatsoever for the canon?"

"And that's a huge reason for why we dislike Mary Sues and Gary Stus," Karen interjected. "Because we like the canon."

"Thank you, Karen," Anjilly nodded. "That is exactly why Sues and Stus are considered such a scourge. They trample on the canon we love and respect, and in doing so stir the anger of those who prefer to abide by that canon. Where we see beauty in the canon, they see something to be changed to make them the ultimate character. They don't want to tell a story; they want to show off how awesome they are. It's all about them. Can you see why we hate them?"

"Now we're going to look at some specific Sue and Stu categories," Karen said, and the screen changed to show a pretty girl with a wide smile and abnormally expressive eyes. "We'll start with Sues, since they're the most common. The scientific name of the original Mary Sue category, Bubbly!Sue or Purity!Sue, is 'Puella Perfecta. Literally, 'Perfect Girl' in Latin. Well, if you're going with literal, technically it's 'Girl Perfect,' but that sounds awkward in English so we rehash the word order to make it 'Perfect Girl,' and Anjilly's glaring at me in a very disconcerting manner so I'll get back on track now. Everything about Puella Perfecta is perfecta—her appearance, her personality, her actions. She is the kindest, most caring girl you will ever meet, sociable and helpful. At some point in her story, she reveals a tragic past. This Sue wins over the canon characters with her perfection, making men who would normally stay faithful to canon significant others or who like completely different kinds of women fall head over heels for her."

"New categories of Mary Sue have cropped up as well," Anjilly pressed a button on a clicker-thing in her hand, and the screen changed to show two girls in all black, looking depressingly gorgeous. "These are the Goth!Sue and the Emo!Sue, two variants on the same theme. Sues have always been rebels, but these two take it to a whole new level of outrageousness. They wear a twelve-year-old's idea of gothic clothing, cut themselves and use drugs, and make everyone feel sorry for them. Emo!Sue usually attracts her mate via nonstop angsting. Like Puella Perfecta, the Mulier Doluta—the Emo!Sue—and the Diabola Gothica—the Goth!Sue—have tragic pasts. Only, since they're so depressed by everything, they're much more vocal about it."

"These traits, if handled properly, can actually make for a more interesting original character," Karen pulled another cookie from her pocket and began to absentmindedly tear small pieces off to flick to the lemurs. Several students began to cry. Three days of barely eating anything because the authentic Asian cuisine looked "yucky" had taken its toll on the class. Karen continued without giving any indication she noticed their pain, though knowing the sadistic witch she was, Lupe was positive Karen was gloating inside. "But of course, tragic pasts are hardly ever handled properly. You have to think long and hard about how a tragic past will affect your character before you actually write it into her. Was she abused by a parent? Did she lose someone? Has she been raped? All of that will give your character some sort of fear or quirk that will affect her interactions with others. People who have tragic pasts don't come out of them completely normal—and if they do recover, it takes a lot of time and work to get to that point." Karen fixed an eye on the class. "But we'll discuss tragic pasts at a later date."

"Gary Stu often has a tragic past, too," Anjilly added. "Mostly so he can look cool while brooding. Usually a Stu's tragic past has to do with everyone he loved - his friends, family, or even entire race - dying. Sometimes he'll have been physically abused as a child. But he's never been emotionally or sexually abused, because as everyone knows, men don't have feelings and can't be raped."

"Nice touch with the sarcasm there," Karen said.

"Thank you. Moving on to the next category," Anjilly clicked the clicker-thing, and the two depressed women onscreen disappeared. They were replaced by a chillingly beautiful woman with red eyes. "Diabola Insolentis, the Evil!Sue, is either found when an author's Lust Object is a villain or when the author wishes for the Lust Object, found on the side of good, to make the Sue see the evil of her ways and convert to the side of good. This category of Sue wears dark red or black, and typically has red eyes, black hair, and pale skin. Another marker of her is that she tends to be a relative of the main antagonist, unless said antagonist is her Lust Object, in which case she is more likely to be related to his best friend. Her Lust Object almost always redeems her through his love."

"The Stu version is just as insidious," Karen nodded solemnly. "He wears black, usually leather, and is covered in scars from all of the battles he's been in. He'll either destroy the good guys and reign as supreme baddie for the rest of his life, or it'll turn out he's actually a relative of the Hero. Don't be surprised if his family was murdered by the biggest bad guy in the past-it'll be a reason for him to get the geezer out of the way and assume control. And you just know he's great in a fight, like his female counterpart...which takes us to the next category. Click the clicker, my good Anjilly Ka." Anjilly complied, and a woman in a rather revealing suit of armor appeared onscreen. "The much-despised Warrior!Sue. She's a real bitch to kill, or so I hear, because she is so naturally gifted with every kind of weapon known to man."

"Oh, Valar, is she," Anjilly shuddered. "One time, there was this half-elven Jedi Knight who had a seven-sided lightsaber and was a crack shot with both a blaster and a bow, not to mention the throwing knives, and she was a master of some made-up fighting style she called elf karate. She nearly snapped my head off of my neck!"

"Wow," said Karen. "How'd you defeat her?"

"My explosions enthusiast of a partner decided the best thing to do was blow up the planet she was on. So we opened a portal under her feet and dropped her on Alderaan mere seconds before the Death Star blew it up. Brenden wanted to take a more personal approach, of course, but I told him that the Sunflower Official would strangle us if we started blowing up planets without approval from DOGA, so…"

"That's nice," said Karen. "Moving on before Anj gets too caught up in her flashbacks. A Warrior!Sue is insulted at the very thought of needing help, and when she's around, at least one male character becomes the Designated Misogynistic Bastard."

"It's usually Boromir," Anjilly added, apparently still flashbacking.

"We're in the Avatarverse, Anj, not Middle-Earth."

"Oh! Right. It's usually Sokka, at least until she proves him wrong."

"Right," said Karen. "Since this 'Misogynistic Bastard' is constantly arguing against the Sue's presence, it's quite possible that this character is actually resistant to the Sue's Aura of Smooth, and is attempting to make his fellows see sense. But the Sue's influence over the others is strong, and she perseveres, despite this fortunately-immune character's best efforts—possibly because his best efforts turn him into a jerk that nobody likes. Warrior!Sue tends to first appear in a story as a mysterious figure, who then proceeds to save her Lust Object before revealing she's a woman."

"It's all very clichéd," Anjilly said. "Warrior!Sue's counterpart, Warrior!Stu, is just as bad. He's quite similar to Warrior!Sue, minus the part where his very existence causes a canon character to become designated as Misogynistic Bastard. If someone does become the Misogynistic Bastard, it's so Warrior!Stu can tell him off - thus scoring points with whatever canon female is nearby. It's also possible that Warrior!Stu himself is a misogynist. In general, however, Warrior!Stu cares little for gender issues - he just wants to show off his amazing fighting skills, show up everyone he comes across, explain to every single canon character that they're idiots, and look awesome." She clicked the clicker and nodded to Karen.

"An offshoot of the Warrior!Sue is Mary Tzu, a military-oriented Sue that rarely acts like a real soldier," Karen pointed to the woman in uniform on the screen. "You're actually more likely to see a male version of this species, simply because men find the military more appealing. Mary or Gary Tzu - named for Sun Tzu, by the way - are brilliant tacticians, to the point of being unrealistic."

"He or she is able to predict their opponent's plans with the smallest of hints, and no matter how unbelievable their counter plan is, it will succeed," Anjilly interjected. "Most of the time, they're a general or other highly-ranked authority in their respective military force. That is usually accompanied by them being incredibly, unbelievably young for the position, yet highly respected by everyone else. Keep in mind that you have to show this character's implausible tactical skills to make your Tzu apparent: otherwise, if they're not too young and immature, we can probably believe their skills. Though they might still be a Sue proper."

"Following is the Anti-Sue," Karen continued. "The Anti-Sue is usually created by Suethors who are trying to avoid creating a 'Sue proper'. This is a noble attempt, but they still fail. Anti-Sues are ugly, stupid, and have terrible personalities—but the canon characters fawn over them all the same. What do you get? Everyone fawning over a Mary Sue who makes no attempt at hiding her true self. It's one of the worst sort of Sues you'll find."

"But not nearly as bad as GodMode!Sues," Anjilly sighed. A new image appeared on screen—a woman in the Avatar State, her eyes and mouth glowing blue-white. "The bane of the PPC, a GodMode!Sue is capable of pulling whatever she needs to win the day out of her butt. It is almost impossible to be rid of her—the only known method so far is complete disintegration. She usually appears in this fandom as an extra Avatar, or some sort of dual-Bender. GodMode!Stus also have a habit of possessing both Zuko and Sokka, causing them to become annoying, super-powerful badasses who can never be wrong. More on Possession!Sues and Stus in a second. GodMode!Sues and Stus are not only dangerous, they are some of the most blatant Mary Sues you can find."

"But not nearly as bad as," Karen's voice dropped to a whisper that the excellent acoustics of the hall carried to every ear, "the BlackHole!Sue."

Anjilly shivered. "BlackHole!Sues are, fortunately, few and far between," the more experienced agent told the class. "They twist the canon in a way other Sues can only dream of, and distort even the most basic Laws of Reality. If you're responsible for a BlackHole!Sue, don't mention it around active PPC agents—they may very well kill you for it."

"I may kill you for it, and I'm not even an active agent," Karen muttered, fishing another cookie out of her pocket. She flicked one last crumb from the first cookie to Moomoo, and began to feed the second to General Iro. "Okay, we will conclude this presentation on Mary Sues and Gary Stus with a look at one final kind of Sue—the Possession!Sue. This Sue occurs when a canon character is Sued—not sued as in the legal sense, but Sued as in made to be a Mary Sue or Gary Stu—and forced to act so out of character that they couldn't touch canon with a ten-foot pole. Though, how weird would it be if someone legally sued a fictional character? I mean, I could understand suing the creators, or the company, or the live-action actors, but what would you even sue a fictional character for?"

"Karen," Anjilly said warningly. "I will let Long Feng brainwash you."

"Uh...back to you, Anj?" Karen grinned sheepishly.

"Don't mind if I do...Possession!Sues are most commonly found in bad romance fanfictions," Anjilly added. "They are usually behind some unorthodox pairing that would never canonically happen, or a pairing that is never explained. That said, Zutara fics are often the result of Zuko and Katara getting possessed by a Stu and Sue."

"Zutara isn't possession! It's true, pure love!" someone in the audience shouted, and they were promptly dive-bombed by Zuke and Katar.

Anjilly spoke a little louder so she could be heard over the shrieking. "Some Possession!Sues are also the result of badfics written in second person. These can be especially tricky to handle, as the author wraith will inhabit the first thing to step into the fic - oftentimes an unsuspecting PPC agent. Trust me when I say it isn't fun to get possessed by one of those things, yes, I'm speaking from experience, and no, I'm not elaborating."

"And…I think that's all for today," Karen smiled a little too brightly at her partner. "Right, Anj?"

"Karen…" Anjilly sighed. "You know what's next."

"Hm? I do? No, I don't think so," Karen's grin grew forced. "Whatever could you be speaking of, my dear, dear Anjilly Ka?"

"We have to give them a few examples of Sues we read about in all those badfics," Anjilly rolled her eyes in exasperation. "The badfics you called 'abominations against canon,' remember?"

"Oh my god!" Someone in the student section screamed. Lupe started, and whirled to look in the direction of the voice. "Mai4 vanished! And…some weird guy in a rainbow karate thingy is sitting in her seat!"

"Huh?" Karen peered into the darkness before her, but couldn't see a thing. "Uh…it sorta sounds like you're talking about Marshall Arts…and don't worry about Mai4, she turns into a teapot whenever a plothole passes by…can someone get a light over there? I can't see a flaming thing!"

"What are plotholes?" another student shouted.

"Plotholes are holes in the plot, unexplained occurrences or deviations from canon," Anjilly answered. "We really should get to those badfic Sues, Karen…"

"I need to tell them about plotholes, though! Students, another thing that causes a plothole is an unexplained timeskip," Karen held up a finger, "Like…"

* * *

"…that one just now," Karen finished grinning at Lupe. With no idea what had just happened, or why Karen was speaking to her, or why she was inexplicably holding a turnip, Lupe let out a squawk and fell off of the teapot she had been balancing on by her little toe. Said teapot grumbled in annoyance and rolled back into the plothole.

"What the…what just…how did…" Lupe babbled, trying to make sense of how she had gone from sitting in a dark hall to this extremely odd situation. "Dios mio! Lo que el Diablo que acaba de pasar?"

"Ooh, Spanish," Karen sucked in a breath. "I don't speak that. Sorry. But it seems we just got caught by a plothole. Did more to you than to me, it'd seem. Well, at least I got out of that badfic stuff! Yay for plotholes!"

"…Estás loco," Lupe muttered, picking herself up.

"I know what 'loco' means!" Karen's face lit up. "Crazy, right? And 'estás'…er, sorta like 'est,' so…you're saying I'm crazy?"

"Sí," Lupe shot at Karen.

"I know that one too! 'Yes'?"

"No tienes remedio!" Lupe screamed, bringing her hands to her temples. "What is it with you people? Why do you seem to think this place is necessary at all? Who cares if your 'Mary Sues' get written or not? I just wanted to write something hot with Zuko and Katara!"

Karen rolled her eyes at that, and crossed her arms. "I know how it feels, at first," she said calmly (another word that one would not expect to apply to Karen, ever), "but you'll get used to it. Let me guess—on your first day, you were awed at the thought of finally meeting your Lust Object and all the canon characters. When we told you they'd be your teachers, your heart was ready to burst out of your chest. Am I right so far?"

Lupe was reluctant to admit it, but Karen was. Karen was right, that is. Somehow. "Sí."

"Your very first day of classes was wonderful, despite all the torture—perceived or actual—you went through," Karen plowed on. "When you went to bed, your head was filled with thoughts of how you could get your Lust Object—Zuko, I'm betting, since he's a sexy beast everyone loves—to fall for you." Lupe just nodded this time, and Karen's tone dropped. "But the next day…you woke up wondering about your family. You wanted to know how they were doing without you, if time was even passing back home at all…if you'd ever see them again."

"Yeah," Lupe used English this time. She was more than a little subdued by now—not only was Karen so accurately describing all Lupe had felt in the past two/three/four days (depending on whether or not one counted the first day, which had honestly been more like an evening, or this day, which hadn't been going on for too long by itself), but Karen was doing it seriously. Karen. Serious. Lupe's head might explode at the thought. Hadn't it been established already that "Karen" and "serious" did not belong together?

"And the homesickness has been coming in waves since then," Karen concluded. "You're alternately fangasming over the characters and the extraordinary situation you've found yourself in, or wanting to curl up in a corner and cry because you miss your family. It's mostly fangasming, but you've thought about home now and then."

"How…how do you know all that?" Lupe whispered shakily. Could Karen read minds? "I haven't told anyone. Nobody."

"It's how I felt at IAHF—the International Academy of Hetalia Fanfiction—for about the first two semesters," Karen's voice caught in her throat, and she looked away. "I'd written some crappy fic about one of the Hetalia characters, and before I knew it I was sharing a room with another badfic author and trying to get something to eat while most of the other students had foodfights over their favorite ships. Um, not that I got involved in any foodfights. Especially the Germancest one, which is creepy and incest-y. Nope, I'm way too immature for that...why are you rolling your eyes? Anyways, we were learning from the very characters we had twisted in our stories, hearing their sides of the stories, and…it was an eye-opener, believe me. I never really stopped trying to glomp my Lust Object, but I definitely learned a lot while I was there. And when I was done…well, despite missing my family so much it hurt, I decided to join the PPC."

"You went to one of these schools too?" Lupe's brain had only digested half of Karen's short monologue, and was trying to process the rest as quickly as possible. "You…you were a…'badfic author'?"

"'Fraid so," Karen chuckled. "Not just Hetalia fandom, either, though that's the first OFU I ever found. I've written Avatar: The Last Airbender before as well. But that's not important. What's important is that I get how hard all of this is, but it's gonna be worth it. I know it will be. That's why I wanted to start this place up."

"But nobody here did anything to you!" Lupe protested. Karen might have thought this was necessary, but Lupe was dead sure the other girl was wrong. "What gives you the right to force us into slavery like this? Not that I mind meeting Zuko and all..."

"Honestly? I don't really care who did what beyond writing badfics," Karen shrugged. "Did I wanna be at IAHF? Nope. But I wound up there all the same. And I don't think I can thank Hugh and Allen enough for getting that place going. They taught me something I'd been trying to discover all along—the beauty of the canon itself. It's something you have to realize on your own. Some of the other students didn't figure it out, and even though they don't write badfic anymore, their stories have been tending towards AUs. Others got it, but decided not to write anymore because after what they'd experienced—interacting with canon characters—they felt they couldn't do justice to the canon. Me, I decided that someone needed to protect the canon at all costs. So why shouldn't I do it?"

"You're not making any sense," Lupe crossed her arms. Her forehead scrunched in confusion. "The show exists, and we can do whatever we want to it. Why would it matter if we stick with the actual show or not?"

"Because," Karen explained patiently (how many words were going to be associated with Karen that shouldn't be? This was getting frightening!), "you'll offend people who love and respect the show itself. And you're not the owner of the canon—the Creators, Mike and Bryan, are. So it's probably a good idea to respect them and their ideas as well as those who also like the canon."

"I still don't get it," Lupe scowled. "And why are you being so…sensible? Serious? All that?"

"Huh?" Karen paused for a moment, then shrugged. "Meh. Guess it's the plothole. They can make people act out of character if they're the right kind. Look at the bright side, this kind of plothole can't get people stuck in it. Like Marshall Arts. He's really bad with plotholes. I don't know why. It could be because of his tie-dyed gi, that's sorta Sue-ish when you get down to it, or rather Stu-ish since he's a guy, at least I think he's a guy because that gi's sorta tight on the chest and I've never really noticed any boobs, though if he's a transsexual who hasn't gotten the surgery yet maybe—"

"Okay, that's sounding more like you," Lupe interrupted. "I'm going to walk away now. What time is it?"

"Er…time for your Platonic Love class, I'd say," Karen guessed. Lupe brightened. She would get to see Zuko. One could never see Zuko enough. "Try not to stampede or glomp anybody, would you? Katara isn't a fan of using up Spirit Water to resurrect people, or using water in general to heal students like yourself, so we'd really like to avoid anyone getting injured."

Lupe didn't hear a word Karen had said after "Platonic Love class." She was too busy walking in the direction she thought the Fire Hall was in, daydreaming of her precious Zuzu.

Karen watched the student go with a heavy heart. "Let's hope that one learns…" She muttered before turning and walking into a plothole.

It took her to the Fancy Lady Day Spa. Who's to say plotholes are always bad things? Unless you're like Karen, and afraid of spas that offer acupuncture because of your acute fear of needles, in which case plotholes are evil indeed and the Ironic Overpower is laughing its head off at you and your weird phobias.

* * *

**Again, registration is closed. If you have a student, I would love to hear from you about how you feel on my characterization of you! Keep in mind that this is all for humor-I will rarely take you seriously, and if I see a turn of phrase I can corrupt, you can flamin' bet I will. Pairings amongst students are also up to me, but I'll listen if there's someone you have in mind.**


	11. Of Seminars and Semantics

**Oh look, a chapter. Props to my students, my beta, and my readers for all the contributions they've given, and a little disclaimer: I don't own A:TLA. **

**Well, now that's taken care of, I'll give you guys another warning: you're not being taken seriously. You may be a rational, intelligent, thoughtful person...but that doesn't mean your student character is. Also, it seems I'm reopening admission, since I have less students than I thought I did. **

**That said, it's time for a new (and hopefully informative) chapter of OFUA:TLA!**

* * *

It was a few weeks before anything terribly important happened at OFUA:TLA. After the first week, the students began to adjust to their schedules (not that they learned how to read them, but they had a fair idea of where they had to be when). As will inevitably happen when a large number of adolescents are forcibly gathered together, cliques and clubs formed. They ranged from the shipping clubs of the Kataangers and Zutarans (and the less-populated but still memorable Tokkans, Zokkans, Jetarans, and a handful of Maikonites) to the more dedicated fan organizations of the Calligraphy Club (headed by Sofia Jayne Owens) and the Asian Lovers' Research Society (headed by a Water Tribe student named Sunan). There were also, of course, those unofficial groups that were just categories for students with a particular Lust Object - the Zukomancers, the Aanglers, and the Boomerang Babes being the largest, of course. Sokka declared the Bendless Boomerangers Club open to the students, and experienced an influx of Boomerang Babes trying to get in despite having registered as Benders. The student Fire Lord Huanzhe had started a group called The Fire Nation Is The Greatest Civilization In The World And The Only Reason Anyone Says Otherwise Is Because They're Too Primitive To Know Better, and despite the fact that Huanzhe seemed determined to eat all its members, the club was already full of students who fancied themselves as "evil" and Ozai, Sozin, and Zhao fangirls. Most students spent their time hanging out with others from their Nation group, although some friendships—like that of Lauphen, Meep, [-], and Lupe—simply would not heed the boundaries.

It was on the third weekend of the first semester, beginning around ten o'clock am in the morning on Saturday, when the first really significant event at OFUA:TLA took place.

Lupe was running down a hallway, trying to remember how to get outside. Karen had announced the previous day that there would be a seminar—the first of many—held in the training grounds that morning. Since weekends were free of training, most students used them to catch up on the sleep they missed during the week proper. Assignments were common, and the Spirit Library tended to be packed on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, much to the chagrin of Wan Shi Tong. Due to Lupe's own personal laziness, she slept in more than most. It was because of this that she was lost in the hallways of OFUA:TLA, trying to find her way outside and failing miserably. Karen would be pleased to know that the floor designs she'd made were nigh impossible to figure out.

Back to Lupe. She rounded a corner, hit a wall, staggered back, and felt something…swirly behind her. When she turned to look, there was only empty space—and a swirling sensation, hanging in the middle of the hallway, suspended and supported by absolutely nothing. Being late already, Lupe didn't want to delay herself by trying to figure out what it was. So, of course, the convenient thing happened, and the plothole (for that's what it was) spewed out an explanation.

Marshall Arts had been trapped in the plothole for about a day. He'd wandered into it unknowingly while trying to find his way to the Staff's cafeteria, and (most inconveniently) been unable to remember how Karen got out of the darn things. When Lupe walked along and needed a convenient answer (that would also inconveniently delay her), well, the plothole did what plotholes do: It gave her what she wanted without any good explanation other than that she wanted it.

There was a rather awkward moment as both tried to process what had just happened. Lupe was fairly sure someone was sitting on her, and didn't know how she should react. Marshall knew his landing wasn't as hard as it should have been, but he couldn't figure out why until he looked down and realized he was sitting on a female student.

"Um…hey…" He blinked, his brain still not fully comprehending the situation. "Are you…all right…?"

"Yeah…" Lupe, similarly disadvantaged, nodded. "I think…who are you?"

"Marshall Arts," Marshall replied. "You know, tie-dyed gi, random plotholes…I thought everybody knew me by now."

"No…" Lupe's brain started to work, and she noticed that it was a little hard to breathe. "Could you get off?"

"Huh?" Marshall remembered exactly what he was sitting on—her—and quickly scrambled off. "Oh! So sorry! Let me help you up!" He got to his knees and pulled Lupe up to a sitting position, then clambered to his feet and helped her stand. "Again, I'm very sorry. The plothole just…spat me out. I've been wandering into them ever since arriving. Did you hurt anything?"

"Huh? Uh, nope," Lupe looked down to examine herself. A bit dirty from the floor, but nothing too bad. At least she hadn't been running—crap. "Crap."

"What is it?" Marshall, still worried about having hurt Lupe, began to panic.

"I'm gonna be late for that seminar thing Karen's giving…whatever it was about," Lupe moaned. "It's probably started by now…"

"You have to get somewhere fast?" Marshall's brain began to work. A plan formed… "Ever wanted to try travelling by plothole?"

* * *

"Ah, Victim—I mean, Lupe," Karen corrected herself quickly. "Nice to see you join us. You do realize you are horribly, inexcusably late?"

"What?" Lupe yelped. "I'm here on time!"

"Not so!" Karen declared. "The seminar began at ten o'clock sharp!"

"It is ten o'clock!" Lupe protested.

"No! It's ten o'clock _and three seconds_!" Karen announced. The Course Coordinator was standing on a wooden stage that had been mysteriously constructed at some point during the night, in front of a bunch of folding chairs. A white sheet had been hung from a wire strung across the back of the stage, and was rippling gently in a slight breeze. "Anj's been telling me to be more 'punctual,' or whatever, so I'm cracking down on tardiness amongst the students to help turn her attention away from my general lateness to everything! Detention!" A cluster of Water Tribe students, including Danish, Ashee, Carsten, Moon Dragon, Vera, and Allison started to giggle while Emma and Jessica Carden (both Fire Nation students) discreetly stuck their tongues out at Karen. "And I have full use of my ears and eyes, and can see and hear you lot. With my eyes and ears. My eyes are doing the seeing and my ears are doing the hearing, of course, because it'd be freaky if I started seeing with my ears and hearing with my eyes…crap, now I wanna know what that would be like…uh, back on track now." She cleared her throat. "This is Semantics and Language in the World of Avatar, a seminar and slideshow presentation concerning the vernacular of the Avatar: The Last Airbender universe."

"What does 'vernacular' mean?" Izar Laun called out.

"Vernacular," Karen sighed, "is a term used to describe the native tongue of a country, and may include slang terms, idioms, phrases that would not make sense to a non-native speaker…the like. Basically, it's contemporary language."

"What does 'contemporary' mean?" Nathaniel Willowshaunt, sitting next to Izar shouted, a wicked grin on his face. Karen gave him a withering look, but since some other students were looking clueless, she explained.

"Contemporary means current," she informed the students. "Theodore James White, I see you next to those two, and if you even try asking what 'current' means I will bombard you with cookies and throw you to the lemurs. No joke." Theodore, who had in the past few weeks become friends with Izar and Nathaniel, slumped dejectedly in his seat. Their plan had been to ask Karen stupid questions to waste time, and hopefully reclaim part of their fun Saturday. Said plan had just failed.

"You haven't missed anything," [-] whispered as Lupe slid into a seat near the back. Meep was sitting on his far side, and Lauphen was sitting two seats down. "She just juggled some cookies and rambled about how she'd like to die by chocolate one day. It was sorta funny, once you got past the morbid dying bit."

Onstage, Karen had produced a clicker-thing (Lupe really needed to figure out what those were called) and was brandishing it like it was a knife. For all Lupe knew, it was one: This was Karen, the woman who could kill with a cookie. It wasn't a bright idea to underestimate her. But no, wait, hadn't all the knives Karen handled vanished?

"The awesomely epic (in a good way) slideshow will now begin!" Karen cried. She may have been trying to use an "epic" voice, but she squeaked on the "good" and pronouncing parenthesis was, while impressive, not the most "epic" thing to do. After a few coughs to make sure her voice would still work, Karen used the clicker to turn on a projector that was on a small table near the front of the audience. Daniel Clemens reached forward and tried to make hand puppets, but Karen's dangerous stroking of a cookie made him stop.

The first slide showed a Chinese character and a book. Below them were the words 'Language and Semantics—how people talk.' Karen cleared her throat one last time, and started to walk across the stage.

"Many of your fanfictions have included preposterous language—and I'm not talking about swearing, dirty words, that sort of thing, though it will be covered today," the woman began. "I'm talking about references to things in pop culture, or the use of slang—let's go with British for our example—when your character is from the Fire Nation."

"What's so bad about that?" William GP called.

"What's so bad about it?" Karen snorted. "For starters, the Avatar universe is based entirely on Asian culture. While there is one—and just one, so far as I know—instance of the cartoon having a black person onscreen, there isn't any African culture. Flame, there isn't an African continent. Likewise, there are no European or contemporary North American cultures."

"How do you know?" Isabella Rose stood up in the front row. Scarlet Johnson, sitting next to her, did likewise after a short and slightly awkward pause where Isabella looked at her expectantly and Scarlet stared blankly at the stage.

"I know because the Creators, Mike and Bryan, said so themselves during an interview," Karen replied. She clicked the clicker, and a new slide came up—the Avatar world map. "This is the entirety of their world's map. Do you see an Africa? Or the Americas? Or a Europe? And no, that protrude-y bit in the northwestern corner of the Earth Kingdom isn't a Europe. You can tell because there are no British Isles."

"Isn't the Fire Nation like America?" Midori BM pointed to the map.

"No, it is not," Karen pressed another button and activated the clicker's laser-pointer function. A red dot began to circle the Fire Nation on the map. "The Fire Nation is a series of volcanic islands—what would be called an 'archipelago' in geographic terms—that were modeled on the landscape in Iceland. It is likely that the Sun Warrior culture, which inhabited the islands before the Fire Nation proper started up, had some Mesoamerican-like traits, because its architecture was…" She trailed off, seeing the vacant expressions on most faces. "Maybe later in the year. Moving on!"

"What's 'Mesoamerica' mean?" Nicole Jackson whispered from two rows in front of Lupe. Elise and Amy, sitting on either side of her, shrugged.

"So, I would like to turn your attention to a question: What would people in the Avatar world say?" Karen continued as if her audience wasn't whispering amongst themselves. "Let's take a look at what they've said in the series itself."

A large gust of wind puffed the screen behind Karen, and for a second Lupe could have sworn she saw Aang in a watchtower behind and above it. Silvery sand blew onstage, swirling into the vague shape of a woman in a qipao.

Karen, you forgot to introduce the new characters.

"Did not! I'm gonna do that when we're done!" Karen protested. "Half of the students are gonna be in denial or ravenous dogs, and the rest will be smug little things for weeks! Tell Tenzin I'll introduce everyone in a little bit, and that they should stay out of sight. And make sure Meelo behaves. I don't want him ruining things by charging onstage in the middle of my lecture."

I'll tell them, but if Meelo gets bored it's on your head. That kid is a menace.

The Silver Sandwitch, who had gone mostly forgotten by the students after Toph insisted all the sand she trailed with her was making it hard to "see" properly, blew offstage. Lupe was now positive Aang was doing something to move her around.

"Well, returning to our previously-scheduled lecture," Karen returned her attention to the audience, "slang terms that have been spoken in the series itself." Another click, another slide. This one had a few phrases written in English, which Karen quickly began to read. "'We're going to get along swimmingly,' 'bleeding hog monkeys' 'flameo,' 'hotman,' and the like. The first one was said by a Water Tribe woman; the last two are Fire Nation terms, although it has been stated that they are somewhat out-of-date; and the second was from a pirate of indeterminable-but-possibly-Earth Kingdom nationality. So what can we infer from these examples? Anyone?"

There was dead silence for a minute before someone raised their hand. Karen pointed to them and nodded. "The Water Tribes have water-related slang terms?" Owlson Pierce ventured.

"Ding ding ding, correct!" Karen applauded. "Yes, the Water Tribe does indeed have water-related slang. Can anyone tell me what we can infer about Fire Nation slang? Come on, do I have to call on you?"

"It's…based on fire stuff?" Somariel spoke up hesitantly.

"Another correct answer!" Karen clapped her hands enthusiastically. "So the Water Tribes use water-related slang, and the Fire Nation uses fire-related slang. First person to correctly tell me what that must mean about the Air Nomads' and Earth Kingdom's slang gets to skip Bending and Weapons Practice on Monday."

There was an immediate uproar. Sleeping in on Monday? Who didn't want that? Karen listened for a few minutes, smiling sweetly (not a good sign), before holding up a hand for silence.

"None of you got it right, so I'm going to explain," she said cheerfully. Lupe groaned—she was so sure she'd gotten it right! Because the Earth Kingdom totally used Spanish slang! Didn't they?

Karen pulled out a cookie and tossed it into the air. She caught it neatly on its way down, and broke it in two. "Earth Kingdom slang is, admittedly, tricky. I did hear several 'it's rock based'-s from you guys, but I'm afraid that's not the whole picture. Kudos to those of you who thought of it, at least." Ishi Bananas and Cyrus Windfall, in the front, patted each other on the back. "So if it's not just rock-based, what is it? Well…" Another slide came up, showing a picture of a rock, a sandbox, and a metal wall.

"An easily-forgotten aspect of Earthbending is Sandbending," Karen extended the hand holding the clicker/laser pointer, centering a red dot on the sandbox. "What's sand like? Fun to play in, but murder if a little bit gets in your shoes. Maybe if something goes wrong, nothing major but enough to irritate someone, an Earth Kingdom citizen might say it's 'sandy.' And what about metal?" The dot moved to circle the picture of a metal wall. "Until Toph discovered Metalbending, metal was the only way to imprison an Earthbender securely. Couldn't you picture an angry Earthbending cursing a 'metaling' turn of luck?"

The slide changed again, this time with a picture of a large black-and-white animal on it. "These are the Badgermoles, the animals from which Earthbending was first learned. They are held in high regard by many in the Earth Kingdom." Another click, another slide change. "And yes," Karen nodded as she circled the boulder onscreen with her laser pointer, "there are a plethora of rock slang terms."

"What about Air Nomads?" Ari Mason shouted.

"I'm getting there," Karen sighed. She took one of the cookie halves in her hand and held it up. A Misspelling Lemur—Suko, going by the scar and fans—dove down from the sky to snatch it up. "Air Nomads are mostly wiped out by the time of the series, with Aang as the sole survivor. There are definitely slang terms they had that he doesn't use. Furthermore, they're Air Nomads—they travel. When you travel, you pick up terms from others around you. I sure wouldn't be surprised if a Firebender living in the Northern Water Tribe, for whatever plausible reason you care to give, started using Water Tribe slang. So while it's likely that there were some good Air Nomad slang terms, it's also likely that they used slang from all over as well. Furthermore—Fyre Elaine, what the flame is chewing on your leg?"

"It's just Lily," Fyre Elaine giggled. "She's my kitty."

"Uh…that looks more like a demonspawn of Hell than a feline," Karen eyed the "cat" suspiciously. A chocolate chip shuriken made its way to her hand. "Please tell me it only tries to drink your blood."

"She's just being friendly," Fyre Elaine insisted. The "cat," Lily, turned one crazed eye to glare at the person sitting closest to Fyre Elaine—namely, Daniel Clemens. He slowly eased away, shuddering.

"Um, yeah, you need help," Karen decided. "I'm sending you to the school therapist after this. Something tells me you need it if you think that…'cat'…is being friendly. Would someone make it stop gnawing on her already? Agni, girl, do you even feel pain?"

"Not anymore," Fyre Elaine laughed. Several lemurs swooped in, gently manhandling Lily off of her master and flying the "cat" to another side of the courtyard.

"All right, back to the lecture," Karen snapped her head around to look at the screen. "Ow! My neck!"

"Maybe she'll let us leave soon," [-] whispered to Meep. Meep's response was to lean over until she was practically resting her head on [-]'s shoulder, and mutter something about eagles being in nests. She didn't bother to right herself, and continued to sit diagonally while staring at the stage with her eyes opened as far as they could go. It was just a little creepy, but her friends had learned by then that her sanity came and went at the strangest times.

"All right…so, to continue, we'll look at making your own slang," Karen grimaced and rubbed her neck. "Great, I knew I was sleeping weird last night…uh, slang. Oh, wait, I almost forgot." She pulled out a scroll, unrolled it, and squinted at it. "Anj's kinda busy keeping Zhao from setting everything on fire - honestly, you show that man one sappy slash fic with him and Zuko... Anyway, she wanted me to add this in for her, so without further ado..." Karen cleared her throat. "Another thing with the vernacular of Avatar: The Last Airbender is that you have to keep in mind that certain things from our language won't work in this world. For instance, acronyms. The letters in an acronym stand for the words of the phrase they represent. Like the YMCA is the Young Man's Christian Association. But in the Avatarverse, there are no letters. Everything is written in hanzi - that is, Chinese characters. So acronyms aren't a possibility in the Avatarverse."

"...Why do you need to tell us this?" someone asked.

"Hey, I'm not telling you this; Anj is! Through me. Which isn't to say she's possessing me, that'd be awful - she'd probably make me be responsible or something." Karen shuddered. "But anyway, she's, like, a linguistics-loving Grammar Nazi, not to mention she's been through about a bazillion badly-written badfics, so language is very important to her and she wants to make sure people get it right." Looking back at the paper, she went on, "Anj also has this whole spiel about when our slang is okay to use in the Avatarverse...basically she says that characters have used the word 'okay' throughout the series, and 'okay' is an English slang term that probably came from an acronym - though it could've been from a Native American language..." Karen paused, then suddenly dropped the bottom half of the scroll she was holding.

The paper rolled across the stage, dropped down to the floor, and went bouncing all the way up the aisle to the back of the audience, unraveling as it went. Lupe leaned over to get a better look, and found that the paper was covered in English - English! - words written in a cramped, somewhat sloppy hand. Interested, she started reading.

_Or it could have been an abbreviation of "oll korrect," which came about in 1839 when misspellings in advertising were considered a fad. It could also be the initials of a name - likely candidates include Orrin Kendall, a biscuit supplier during the American Civil, and Onslow and Kilbracken, the Lord Chairman of Committees of the House of Lords and his counsel. Or it could've been from the Old English "hogfor," meaning "seaworthy," which could have been shortened to HG and then pronounced "hah gay" by Norwegian and Danish sailors..._

"...These are all Anj's notes on the etymology of 'okay'," Karen said, staring at the extremely long strip of paper. "And she says that if it's being used in canon, then it should be okay to use in fanfiction. Annnnnd...well, there's all this stuff about how English probably isn't even the Avatarverse's language and we should all probably just pretend that it was translated from a Chinese-like language or something, which would make the vernacular issue a moot point, and honestly I'm under the impression that 'okay' originated from some Greek terms, but then I don't really know if my source is credible, mostly because I have no idea where I heard it…" Karen stared at the paper some more. After a moment, she tossed the scroll away. "Well, the point is: Don't use acronyms, because it's impossible. And sometimes it's okay to use our slang. But don't go crazy, okay? Okay. Now. Let's think up some slang terms for the various Nations. Since the Fire Nation is clearly the most popular, we'll start there. Ideas?"

"Pony win!" A Water Tribe boy stood up proudly, displaying the fact that he had no pants. "Totally pony win!" Lupe looked away blushed. She'd met another Water Tribe student who had no pants as well, by the name of Sunan-whoever this other student was had probably made himself a Foggy Swamp Water Tribe member too.

"Uh, no," Karen shook her head. "Look, um…señor dangao pickle, please sit down. Okay, can anyone venture a guess as to why that wouldn't work?"

"It's really random?" Lana Kirk suggested.

"That's one reason, but who can think of more?" Karen looked around encouragingly. "Come on. Why wouldn't a pony reference work for the Fire Nation?"

"I don't think there are ponies in the Fire Nation," Sunan mused from the middle of the audience. "All of their animals are hybrids, and if they do have ponies, they'd be a cross with another breed. You'd have to say something like…ponydog win?"

"Good job, Mr. Sunan," Karen nodded. "All right, so we have to remember that any animal references must be changed to reflect the unique natures of Avatar world animals. Does anyone have another suggestion?"

"Flaming grasslands?" Izar Laun shouted.

"很好!" Karen beamed. "Care to share when one would use it and why?"

"Uh…" Izar blinked. "It'd be bad, because grassfires are really deadly…and you'd use it when something huge has gone wrong? Because it'd be like a grassfire, only not…?"

"I could see that," Karen nodded. "How about another one? Maybe somebody knows a little something about Asian mythology?" The slide changed again, this time to show three pictures - one of fire, one of the sun, and one of lightning. "Here are the three types of fire, according to Indian mythology - and by Indian I mean Hindu, not Native American. You could try using a reference to them, say, 'three fires'? Or what about mythological figures associated with fire?" Again the slide changed, this time to an old-looking painting of a two-headed man with bright red skin riding a ram. Fire surrounded his faces, and both he and his mount were decked out in jewelry and fine-looking cloth. "The Fire Nation is known to have Indian influences. Why can't they also have similar mythological figures? Agni was the Hindu god of fire, and in case you don't remember, I myself exclaimed his name not long ago. Many people invoke spiritual or religious names when they swear—Catholics have been known to call on 'Mary, Mother of God,' haven't they? An alternative, if you would prefer having a female fire spirit, her name could be Pele. Pele is a Hawaiian volcano goddess that also controls lightning. Since the Fire Nation is a series of volcanic islands, and we've already heard about the three types of fire as defined by Indian mythology, I'd say she'd fit too."

"Did you google all this?" Carsten D yelled. Karen blinked, and started to look extremely guilty.

"…No."

"Suuure," Danish rolled her eyes. Ashee Bieber giggled next to her.

"Uhh, we're gonna look at Earth Kingdom slang," Karen changed the slides quickly. The Earth Kingdom emblem—Lupe felt a bit proud that she could recognize it now—came up. "Here we have a lot of possibilities. There are the different kinds of rocks, the stages of rocks, uses for rocks, blatant puns on getting high in the form of 'stone' references…this shouldn't be too hard. Anyone?"

"That's the peak?" Nicole Jackson suggested. "Like, mountain peaks?"

"It's stonin'!" Vera cried before dissolving into giggles. Half of the female students joined her, and a fair number of men as well.

"I'll rock your world!" Joe C. Smith, whose arm was slung around the shoulders of Andy Roseanne, cackled. He turned to face Andy. "No, seriously. I will."

"And I'd be more than happy to give your gems a shine," Andy smirked.

"We're moving on before those two get even more inappropriate!" Karen declared. "Water Tribe slang, go!"

"Rough waters!"

"Smooth sailing!"

"Hey, that one exists already! Karen, you should give her detention!"

"But it fits, so I'm not going to, though I'll be more than happy to throw a cookie at you if you'd like to be more unhelpful."

"I'm good…"

"Frigid!"

"Cool!"

"All right, that's enough," Karen crossed her arms. "Let's get some Air Nomad slang thought up, I'll introduce a few new Staff members, and you can all have the rest of the day off." Several students cheered. "You'll need all the rest you can get for GrammarBootCamp in two weeks." Those who didn't know what GrammarBootCamp was groaned; those who had heard stories, or experienced it themselves at another OFU, had the sense to look terrified.

"Would 'that blows' work?" Zerkz suggested. "Or 'wind beneath my glider'?"

"I'd say they would, yes," Karen agreed, "but how about something obscure? Any ideas?"

"'It's a tempest'?" Meep, still sitting at an awkward angle and staring with wide eyes, shouted. Karen took a look at her, shrugged, and used her clicker to turn off the projector.

"Good enough for me," she declared. Turning to face a nearby shed, she called, "Oi, Tenzin! Bring out yer cast! And yes, that was a Monty Python reference!"

"I don't know what Monty Python is!" A man opened the door to the shed. He exited, leading about nine other people to the stage. "Here we are. Do your introductions, if you would."

"Gladly, my good sir," Karen executed a heelspin and promptly fell over. "Ow. Hi Meelo. Please don't sit on my—mphf!" One of the new arrivals, a young boy clearly no older than seven, had perched himself on Karen's face. He was wearing an Airbender's outfit in more muted tones than Lupe remembered from the show, complete with a shawl.

"Meelo, she can't breathe," the man who seemed to be the leader of the group sighed. He picked the boy up and placed him on the shoulder of another boy, this one a teenager dressed in gray with a green sash. "Bolin, could you watch him for a moment? Thank you…"

"Sure," Bolin grinned. Meelo immediately began to pull his hair. "Ow…no, stop that…"

"Thanks, Tenzin," Karen accepted an offered hand and pulled herself up. "All right students, these are the ten characters who have received official designs for the upcoming Nickelodeon series The Last Airbender: Legend of Korra." Hands immediately shot into the air. "Questions will be answered afterwards. Thankfully none of them have lusters yet, but there will still be lemurs escorting them everywhere in case someone notes resemblances to other staff members. Yes Mako, I'm talking about you. Deny it all you like, you're the new series' Zuko, you just don't angst."

"I'm not," a boy in dark grey with a red scarf muttered. He crossed his arms belligerently. Lupe squinted to get a better look at him—he really did look like Zuko, actually. Just, no scar. Hey, he was sorta hot…

"Before I tell you all their names," Karen spoke a bit more loudly than before to cover up Mako's muttering, "I'll tell you two things. One of them is Katara's child, and the other is Toph's child. And yes, Tenzin is an Airbender—his yellow and orange clothing sorta gives it away—so it does follow that he is Aang's son."

"Ooh!" Scarlet squealed. "I know, I know! Tenzin's Toph's son, right? And that old chick, she's Katara and Zuko's daughter! Ah, I knew it! Zutara all the way!"

"Wrong on all counts," Karen raised an eyebrow wickedly. "Everyone, meet Tenzin, third child of Avatar Aang and Katara of the Southern Water Tribe. And that 'old chick' is Bei Fong, daughter of Toph and an unknown male, head of the Metalbender Cops of Republic City."

Those in the audience who supported Zutara began to scream in outrage, while the Kataangers began to cheer. Lupe couldn't believe it—there was no way Tenzin was Aang and Katara's kid! Katara and Zuko were meant to be!

"Ahem?" Karen cleared her throat loudly, making threatening gestures with a cookie. All but the most enthusiastic fell silent, and a few cookie throws later it was quiet enough for the black-clad woman to continue. "As I was saying, this is Tenzin. Holding his hand is his wife Pema, who is, yes, pregnant. It's their fourth child. Jinora, the taller girl next to her mother, is their eldest daughter, and the other girl jabbering away at her father with no regard for who's speaking is Ikki, their younger daughter. I'd say you gathered Meelo's name when he sat on my face. That's him, sitting on Bolin's shoulder. Bolin is an Earthbender from a multiracial family in Republic City."

"What does that mean?" Moon Dragon yelled.

"It means that he has relatives in more than one nation," Karen explained. "Mako, next to him, is his brother. Mako's also a Firebender. A Firebender and an Earthbender, as brothers; you really can't predict these things. Of the two, Mako is the elder."

"Like Bolin ever listens to me because of that," Mako rolled his eyes. He even sounded sorta like Zuko…

"The creepy guy in the mask with a hood up is Oman, the main villain of Legend of Korra," Karen pointed to a man hanging near the back of the group. "He's really not very well defined, so until the creators tell us more about him, he's gonna be sort of…bipolar. And this young lady in Water Tribeblues, standing next to me," Karen clapped a hand on the shoulder of a teenaged girl with brown hair and blue eyes, "is Avatar Korra, the Avatar immediately after Aang."

"Hello there, everyone," Korra smiled and waved. "I was created after the same basic model as Katara, thanks to her popularity in the original series. Avatar Aang's shoes are gonna be hard to fill, but in my show I promise to do my best to—"

"Hey, she does look sorta like Katara," Ashee Bieber noted.

"And Mako looks like Zuko!" Danish observed.

"Maybe they'll be paired together, and it'll be like the Zutara of the future!" Andy Roseanne cheered. "Makorra forever!" The resulting cheers of approval from other Zutarians drowned out all hope of recovering the situation. Korra and Mako gave each other distressed looks. They had no idea if they would end up together or not in the series, and would prefer not to find out until the show itself started.

"What'd I tell you?" Karen sighed. "Ravenous little Beasts of Caerbannog, aren't they?"

"What?" Tenzin frowned.

"That's it. The Staff is having a Monty Python Movie Night tomorrow."


	12. Of Foolish Plots and Smelly Glue

**And so, another chapter of OFUA:TLA appears. I present it to my readers with joy, pride, and mild sleep-deprivation-induced confusion. Also, turns out that if you don't go online for roughly three days, a whole lot of message pile up in your inbox...and I've yet to check my actual email account. Heh...**

**I would also like to dedicate this chapter to one of my readers, who will be leaving for basic training soon, and to the military as a whole. Our government may not please us with every single thing it does, but the men and women in the military deserve our support and appreciation. If you're not American like me, I hope you still appreciate your country's military and support them as best you can.**

**Serious stuff aside, please enjoy the latest chapter! Which, somehow, got really really long when I wasn't looking...**

* * *

The evening after OFUA:TLA's first seminar saw Lupe wandering the corridors of the school, trying to find her way to her detention. A Fire Nation guard named Lee had told Lupe where to go that afternoon. But of course navigating OFUA:TLA at night, in the dark, through nonsensically winding hallways, all the while worrying about those crazy lemurs attacking her, had caused Lupe to become very, very lost.

She paused at the intersection of five corridors, and tried to recall what Lee had told her. "'Go to the Staff workrooms and help our painter make his paints,'" Lupe muttered to herself. "Couldn't have included a map with that, nope, of course not…"

Well, the Staff workrooms were near the Staff Section, right? And the Staff Section was in that huge, imposing tower on the side of campus opposite the student dorms. So, Lupe just needed to head for the Staff Section, right?

Staff Section it was. So, uh, which way would that be?

Lupe chose the first hallway that caught her eye and started walking. It wound around on itself several times before ending before a mural of dragons. Exasperated, Lupe turned around to go back the way she came—only to find herself staring at the Blue Spirit.

Now, Lupe loved the short "School Time Shipping," where Katara chose the Blue Spirit over Aang, Haru, and Zuko. Because technically the Blue Spirit was Zuko, and thus Katara was choosing Zuko anyways. Plus Zuko's method of asking Katara out was just adorable.

But the Blue Spirit himself was not adorable. In fact, he was kind of creepy. Thanks to the mask, you couldn't see his eyes, or any part of his face, so you couldn't guess at what he was thinking. The two swords slung over his shoulder didn't help put Lupe at ease. To make things even more ominous, someone or something extinguished two out of every three lanterns in the halls after nine, making it hard to see. And the Blue Spirit was standing against the light, so most of his front was in shadow to Lupe's eyes.

Forget "creepy," Lupe decided. This was actually more along the lines of "terrifying."

"Um…heya there," Lupe chuckled nervously. "I'm sorta lost."

The Blue Spirit tilted his head sideways. It may have been meant to be curious, but to Lupe it just looked menacing. And in the dark light…

…oh, Mary, Mother of God. She had just met the Blue Spirit in a dark alley. Hallway. Whatever. That was one to write home about.

Without saying a word, the Blue Spirit turned around, gestured for her to follow him, and walked off. Lupe hesitated, but even if he was scary and intimidating, he was a Staff member, and he probably knew his way around better than Lupe herself. And even if he was scary, well…he was an alter ego of Zuko…

Lupe grinned to herself and hurried after him.

The Blue Spirit led her down several hallways, occasionally turning with no previous warning. He never bothered to pause and wait for Lupe, or to glance back to see if she was still following, despite setting a pace so fast Lupe had to run to keep up. The empty halls echoed more than usual, so it almost sounded as if a group of people were trying and failing to sneakily—

Hold up. That was a group of people trying and failing to sneakily walk through the halls!

The Blue Spirit came to an abrupt stop at a T-intersection of the corridors, and held his arm out at chest level. He caught Lupe in the chest as she failed to slow enough in time, and pointed. Lupe craned her neck around the corner to see whatever—or whoever—it was.

Apparently, Lupe wasn't the only student out of the Student Section that night. A herd of other students, mostly girls from the Water Tribe and Fire Nation divisions, were walking down the hallway. Several of them were giggling…including one that looked like a middle-aged man. It was kind of creepy, because he had a deep voice that wasn't meant for giggling. Man, what was with all the creepiness tonight?

The Blue Spirit put a hand on her shoulder, and gently guided Lupe back down the hallway. "What's going on?" She whispered to him. It was clear the Blue Spirit didn't want the group of students to know he and Lupe were there, but what was he doing sneaking around with her in the first place? Maybe some of the more devoted Zuko fangirls would want to glomp him, but he was too intimidating for most of them.

Of course, Lupe's question went unanswered. The dim light made it hard to see someone standing still in the dark spaces between lanterns, so when Toph suddenly appeared, it was only the Blue Spirit's hand slapping over her mouth that kept Lupe from screaming.

"What's with the student?" Toph hissed as Lupe gasped for breath. "Ah, forget it. We gotta hurry, or we'll miss it!" At that, the blind Earthbender began to run silently down the hall, heading towards whatever "it" was.

"Miss wha—" Lupe was cut off as the Blue Spirit grabbed her wrist and tugged her along after Toph. The Blue Spirit was just as stealthy as he had been in the show. Sadly, Lupe wasn't as well-acquainted with stealth as the canon characters were, and there might as well have been an elephant lumbering through the school.

Lupe was seriously considering digging her heels into the floor and demanding they either explain the situation or drag her (knowing the Blue Spirit and Toph, they'd have opted for the latter) when they turned a corner and stopped in front of a group of canon characters…and Anjilly and Karen. Karen was nibbling on a dull snickerdoodle stilletto, apparently trying to bring it to a point. Best of both worlds, Lupe supposed - Karen got her sharp cookie, and could eat it too. Anjilly, meanwhile, was eyeing Karen skeptically over a steaming mug of tea.

"Hey guys, what took you so long?" Sokka called. He was standing between Yue and Suki, who were glaring at each other openly. One of Sokka's arms was loosely wrapped around Suki's waist, and both of her arms were draped on his neck possessively. Yue had a slight pale-blue glow to her, as if her anger activated her moon powers.

"Meh, the Blue Spirit here thought he'd drag a student along," Toph jerked a finger at Lupe. "Beats me why he would, though. She could barely keep up all the way here."

"A student?" Karen took the cookie out of her mouth and squinted at Lupe. "Hmm…Lupe Gabriella Hernandez, Fire Nation, Dual Dao swords?"

"Uh…yes?" Lupe was terrified. She was face-to-face with Karen! In the dark! Without the handy influence of a plothole to make Karen act sane!

"Nice to have you here?" Karen looked behind Lupe, to where the Blue Spirit was standing. "Uhh…and you brought her here why, again?"

"He's got a cruuuuuush," Toph cackled. Lupe frowned and turned to shoot down the younger girl's claim—the Blue Spirit was too creepy to have a crush on her—but stopped when she noticed something rather interesting. The Blue Spirit had taken his mask off.

And now Lupe was looking at the guy who'd fallen onto her from the plothole earlier that day.

"You!" She gasped, pointing.

"Him," Karen agreed from behind Lupe. "Hi Marshall. I must ask, why'd you take off the headband? It was pretty sweet."

"Zuko never wore a tie-dyed headband with his outfit," Marshall answered. "It'd kind of ruin the effect."

"Wait…you…you're…you're the Blue Spirit?" Lupe gaped. "But I thought that was Zuko!"

"Well, yeah," Marshall agreed. "But he's sort of put that stage of his life behind him, now that he's Fire Lord and all. I showed up, with all my random martial art knowledge and great artistic abilities, and got recruited to wear the mask."

"Sorta like that one Zorro movie with Zorro's successor," Karen put in.

"Or the Dread Pirate Roberts," Anjilly nodded before taking a sip of tea.

Everyone sighed.

"Okay," said Karen, "so, after the Monty Python movie night - "

"When are we having that, anyway?" Anjilly asked.

"Whenever we find time between all these pathetic plots the students keep pulling. Anyway, after Monty Python, we're going to watch The Princess Bride and as many Zorro movies as I can find."

"A princess bride is pretty self-explanatory," Aang said, "But what's a Zorro?" His arm was linked through Katara's, which bugged Lupe. That should have been Zuko next to Katara!

"Hey, guys!" Haru ran up, closely followed by Combustion Man. The latter was carrying a bag, which was thrashing violently. Combustion Man's Raven Eagle eyed the bag hungrily. "We caught something weird on our way here," Haru explained. "I was hoping Karen or Anjilly would be able to tell us."

"Sure, bring it out," Karen shrugged. "Not making any promises, though. I'm no Aang."

"Okay," Haru held out a hand to Combustion Man. Combustion Man gave Haru a glare (or it might have been an exasperated look - it was hard to tell with him) and held the bag up to the young Earthbender. Haru put his hand in, and pulled out...

"...And I have no idea what that is," Karen blinked at the black bird with yellow eye markings.

Aang released Katara's arm to walk over and poke the bird's yellow beak. "It...sorta looks like a cross between a mynah-bat and an eagle-mynah," he said.

"...I guess that'd make it a mynah, then?" Karen surmised. "Whatever that is."

"Didn't a student have one of those?" Anjilly frowned, trying to remember. "Sofi...something...?"

"They're coming!" Toph hissed. "Places, everyone!"

The staff's reaction was immediate. Zuko, Iroh, and Jeong Jeong raised and lowered their hands, somehow using the movement to dim the fire in the lanterns to mere embers. Marshall grabbed Lupe's arm and dragged her into a small niche in the wall while the rest of the staff took up positions in the shadows. Karen and Anjilly's cookies and tea disappeared, and the agents quickly unfolded a metal net and laid it out on the floor. Then they rushed to the very end of the group near Lupe and Marshall and went perfectly still. It was uncanny how well Karen's clothing blended into the darkness, though Anjilly's bright green tunic was nearly luminescent until she ducked behind a pillar.

Several people were giggling a ways down the hallway, and Lupe peered around the corner of the niche to try and see who was coming. Marshall stuck his head out as well, and because he was quite a bit taller than Lupe, he wound up resting his chin on her head. Lupe considered telling him off, but she didn't want to ruin whatever the Staff was planning. Doing so would probably result in pain. Lots and lots of cookie-induced pain.

Shadows flickered over the wall, and a group of students rounded the corner. It was the same group Lupe had seen not too long ago, when the Blue Spirit—Marshall—showed her. Several of them were whispering to each other, and as they approached Lupe could make out what they were saying.

"Those freaky lemurs must be asleep by now," Danish giggled. "We can sneak past them no problem!"

"Huanzhe here will take care of Karen and Anjilly…" Fyre Elaine patted the shoulder of a middle-aged man who bore a great resemblance to Zuko and Ozai. He grinned down at her, one of his eyes twitching sporadically. Fyre Elaine quickly removed her hand.

"…and Zuko will be ours!" Ashee Bieber crowed. Lupe frowned. Zuko, theirs? Ha. Not likely. Either Lupe would get him, or she'd help convince him that Katara was his one true love. Because she obviously was.

"Maybe there'll be real food in the Staff Section, too," Jessica Carden suggested dreamily. "Not steamed vegetables or rice or tea, but actual, wholesome food. Like potato chips…"

"And we can gang up on that stupid Mary Sue, Suki!" Isabella Rose cheered. "Because she's a...Mary Suki!" Scarlet Johnson, walking next to her, cackled evilly.

"You just want her out of the way so you can get Sokka," she teased. Isabella Rose gave no denial.

"Y'know, I'd've thought Andy and Joe would be all over this plan," Amy Ochanian remarked softly. "But when I went to ask if they wanted in, I couldn't find them…"

"Be happy you didn't," Moon Dragon shivered. "I, uh, have the room underneath Andy's. I've got a pretty good idea of what they're up to."

"Eww," Carsten D wrinkled her nose. "I totally didn't need to hear that."

"Meh," senor dangao pickle shrugged. "Notpony/notpony's never held much appeal for me."

"Okay, that just sounds grosser," Nicole Jackson rolled her eyes. "Remind me never to read your M-rated fics. If there are any."

"It's probably best to forget about the subject," Sofia Jayne Owens advised. "And focus on what sorts of experiments I'll do on Aang when he's in my clutches. Don't you agree, Ari?" Arizona Mason, Sofia's closest friend at OFUA:TLA, gave a noncommittal sound of agreement and returned to gazing dreamily ahead. "What about you, Emma?"

Emma gave a start. "What? Sorry, I was thinking about how cool Toph is…"

"She'll die just the same," Zuna muttered from the back of the group. The Mai fangirl apparently emulated her idol by adopting her persona—namely, by being depressing. Next to Zuna, Owlson Pierce gave her a nervous look and sidled a bit closer to Somariel.

"Shh!" Vera Moretti hissed. "I think I heard something!"

"Like our stomachs rumbling?" Allie Doyle groaned. "I really hope they don't serve that jook goop tomorrow morning at breakfast. Or those gross pickled vegetables…" Lupe could only agree with that. Pickled vegetables were disgusting.

"No, I think I heard it too," Christina Soh piped up. "Sort of an angry muttering? Kinda sounded like Sokka's voice?"

"It might be Newton coming back," Sofia suggested. "I sent him ahead to scout a while ago. He should have been back by now." Seeing she was getting blank looks, she sighed. "Remember? Newton, my mynah bird?" Not getting any response, she threw up her hands in exasperation. "Why doesn't anyone remember my mynah bird? Nathan, I explained it to you earlier today! Don't you remember?"

Nathan Hofstad was just opening his mouth to reply - likely with a no - when Zuko shouted, "Aang, Toph! Now!" The lanterns flared to life as Toph and Aang, on opposite sides of the hallway, stepped out and Metalbended the steel net on the floor up to the ceiling. Everyone in the student group was standing on it, and they were thrown flat by its sudden upwards motion. Rivets on the edges of the net melded into the metal of the ceiling, effectively pinning the wayward students far above the floor.

"See? I told you it was an awesome idea!" Karen bragged to Anjilly. "Aang, Toph, great work!"

"Eh," Anjilly shrugged, taking another sip from the mug that had reappeared in her hand. "I've seen fancier, but you're right - it did the job admirably."

"What's going on?" Ashee Bieber squeaked. "Let us down!"

"Ow! Your foot's in my face!" Isabella Rose snapped at Moon Dragon. "Move it already!"

"I'm very disappointed in all of you," Anjilly informed the students. "You lost me ten dollars. I bet Karen you'd try to bribe the lemurs with lychee nuts. But sending Shiri, Daniel Clemens, and William GP to drug the lemurs with an illegally-obtained sleeping powder rubbed into lychee nuts? Where did you even get sleeping powder?"

"Lana—I mean, Freeranger," Sofia answered. Her face was pressed against the ceiling, muffling her words somewhat. "After you took away her Shame Bombs, she started experimenting with some things she found around the school. I think she used a plothole to get some of the ingredients. One of them was this awful shade of not-purple, I think she called it 'bled'…"

"Huh?" Karen frowned. "How'd she find a portal to IAHF? They're only supposed to deal with the Avatar universe. Maybe I shouldn't have put her in the room where that Bled Bomb went off…"

"Bled Bomb?" Sokka gave Karen a quizzical look.

"I was experimenting with bled as a possible color for the Water Tribe/Fire Nation students," Karen explained. "It, uh, sort of exploded and painted this one room bled. I had to send an order form to IAHF for some of Arthur's mashy turnip thingy to get the bled out. Smell still hasn't faded…"

Anjilly groaned. "Karen, please don't start experimenting with awful badfic color combinations. I know they're an OFU tradition, but the Sue color spectrum is hazardous to one's sanity. I mean, urple's bad enough, and I've nearly been blinded by wilver and bleen on several occasions, but now this bled thing..."

"What's bled?" Aang asked, going back over to Katara to put an arm around her waist.

"The most evil combination of blue and red you'll ever find," Karen shuddered. "Apparently a couple of canons from the Hetalia OFU created it one night with the help of a massive plothole. It's got the power to blind on sight, and can't be removed unless you use Arthur—he's a canon character from Hetalia, personifies England—well, you need some turnip dish thingy of his to remove bled. I got my hair painted bled once. That wasn't a fun month…but at least it wasn't urple..."

"Why didn't you just wash it out first thing?" Shiri called.

"W-well, I didn't know if turnip-smelling hair would be very attractive for Ludwig…" Karen muttered, going red. Lupe surmised this "Ludwig" was Karen's crush/Lust Object.

"Excuse me, Karen?" Marshall stepped out of the niche, pulling Lupe with him. "If it's all right with you, I'm going to get this one started on her detention. I need someone to help me mix paints before I get to work on the yearbook designs."

"Lupe!" Jessica Carden cried. "What are you doing down there? Why are you spending time with the Staff?"

"I got lost and Marshall dragged me here," Lupe called. "Why didn't you guys tell me what you were planning? You know I'd have been all in!"

"Well, you had detention," Somariel muttered guiltily. "And, uh, you're pretty enthusiastic about Zuko and all…"

"I think Ms. Hernandez can leave now," Anjilly advised Marshall. "Go mix your paints. We'll deal with this matter."

"Hey, that girl's not wearing her uniform skirt!" Katara pointed to Ashee Bieber. "I thought the female Foggy Swamp Tribe Waterbenders were allowed skirts."

"Ew! I'm not from that freaky swamp! And I am not wearing a skirt!" Ashee screeched. "I will kill anyone who tries to make me wear a dress or a skirt!"

"Reeeeally now?" Karen grinned, face lighting up as she realized yet another way she could torment a student. In a sing-song voice, she called, "Oh Suuuukiiiii, would you care to assist me with something? As a coworker bonding experience, after all that animosity over the whole bringing-Yue-here thing…"

"I'm still not happy with you," Suki shot a glare at Karen, then across Sokka at Yue. The Moon Spirit began to glow brighter, and shoved her nose into the air haughtily.

"But you are the resident expert on getting people who hate skirts to wear them," Karen said, shooting a grin at Sokka. The Water Tribe boy flushed with remembered embarrassment.

"Let's go before the cookies start flying," Marshall suggested to Lupe. He tugged on her arm, guiding her into another hallway. Screams of rage drifted from behind them, as well as the distinctive sound of Karen cackling.

"So…how do you mix paints?" Lupe asked. She tried to ignore Ashee's shouts about the "stupid Mary Sue Suki" attacking her.

"Well, mostly it's black and colored ink sticks," Marshall replied. "I've got most of them mixed, but they need to be pressed into stick form before I can start properly."

"What's in them?" Lupe wondered.

"Oh, charcoal for black, ground lapis lazuli for blue," Marshall said, waving a hand. "And mineral and plant dyes for other colors, and glue for consistency. That sort of thing. But Karen seems to think the deer-horn glue smells bad."

* * *

Lupe covered her mouth with her sleeve and stirred the pot of glue before her. Marshall was fanning the fire under the pot, rambling on about how cheese cloth was best for straining the glue after cooking it, and what sort of animals made for the best glue. "Young deer is best," he chattered happily, "especially the horns. It's said that young deer horn glue is the purest, and makes the best ink. You have to be sure to powder the horn good, though, because otherwise the glue will be lumpy, and lumpy glue makes for lumpy ink."

"Uh-huh," Lupe grunted, trying to breathe as little as possible. She strained to keep her arms moving, but the sticky mixture in the pot was doing its best to prevent that. Marshall's constant stream of what Lupe considered useless information was starting to deaden her brain, putting the rest of her on auto pilot.

Not that Marshall realized she wasn't listening. "I got the powders for the colors from the Earth King. Turns out the Earth Kingdom has a bunch of good sources of rocks for ink coloring. But then, they are the Earth Kingdom, right? It just makes sense. So, the blues are just beautiful, they really are, and the reds, oh, I was floored when I saw how bright they are! The blacks are what we're working on now. Jeong Jeong and Iroh helped me make soot for the blacks last week. We just need the glue finished, and we can combine it with the soot and press it into sticks."

"Is the glue almost done?" Lupe moaned, leaning away from the simmering pot of glue to gasp for breath.

"Just a bit more," Marshall assured her. "Anyways, the soot is from special pine wood I got to handpick from a huge shipment Karen ordered. The stuff I didn't want to use for ink soot I'm gonna use for carving in my spare time, just for something to do, you know? Sokka mentioned wanting to carve something for a girl, but I'm not sure if he meant Suki or Yue because he's driving Suki mad with only talking about Yue until Suki jabs him in the side and that'd be kind of interesting to draw, don't you think? But Sokka really can't carve, so whoever he's trying to bribe with carvings isn't gonna be so happy, y'know?"

"Sure," Lupe gagged. "Am I done yet?"

"Keep stirring while I grab the soot from the cabinet," Marshall advised. He folded his fan and stood up, walking about ten feet away to the cabinet that apparently held the other ingredient for the ink. Lupe adjusted her sleeve over her mouth and tried not to breathe deeply. The room her detention was being held in was roughly twenty by fifteen feet, and filled with all kinds of art supplies. Canvases were propped against the walls and tables, and brushes littered almost every flat surface available. Lupe supposed it was Marshall's work room, when he wasn't brewing foul substances in it.

Marshall pulled a Tupperware container filled with black powder out of the cabinet, and walked back over to Lupe. "Could you put out the fire?" he asked, unsealing the lid on the Tupperware. "I can take over stirring once the soot's in…" Careful not to spill any soot outside of the pot, or even on the lid, Marshall began to pour the black powder into the pot of glue.

"Can I stop now?" Lupe hissed. Marshall pulled out a small brush and cleaned out the Tupperware container, then took the stirring stick from Lupe. Grateful to be able to get away from the foul smell of the glue, Lupe stumbled backwards to a fairly clear area and sucked in a deep breath. The air wasn't much better, but at least she wasn't directly inhaling glue fumes. Could you get high off of those? Lupe wouldn't be surprised if you could…

"So, I'm thinking I'll use the Gong-bi method for making the student yearbook portraits," Marshall began. "But Karen mentioned wanting them to be done before the second semester starts, because she wants me to start teaching a class then, and I can only do one student a day if I use the Gong-bi method—oh, that means I'm making them really detailed and accurate—so, if I use Gong-bi I can only get one student done a day, but I'm getting a late start as it is, sooo…"

"Okay, stop there," Lupe sighed. "I have no idea what you've been saying for the past…how long have I been stirring that pot of glue?"

"Two hours."

"I've got no idea what you've been talking about for the past two hours," Lupe nodded. "It's been stuff about ink, and brushes, and how wolf fur is better than wool, and all sorts of things that are just going over my head. Isn't there anything else you like to talk about? Like, I dunno, a hobby, a good show you saw lately, something juicy from a magazine?"

"Um…painting's my hobby," Marshall shrugged. "I don't know what magazines are."

"Then something, anything, you find interesting?" Lupe sighed. "There's gotta be something!"

Marshall blinked at her for a few moments before shrugging. "Well, I wouldn't really know," he admitted. "I was only created three weeks ago. I'm not sure what kind of things I like, don't like, find interesting…"

"You…what?" Lupe frowned. "If you're only three weeks old, how come you know so much about art?"

"It came with the name," Marshall explained. "Marshall Arts, so I have great artistic talent. I'm also pretty good at fighting. But otherwise…yeah, I know virtually nothing about the world."

"So…you've only got three week's worth of life experience?" Lupe blinked. "Oh wow…that's harsh. Pobre hombre, probablemente ni siquiera estado en una cita…uh, I mean, poor guy."

"…What?" Marshall looked over Lupe, eyebrows drawing together. "What did you say?"

"I said 'poor guy,'" Lupe clarified.

"No, no, before that," Marshall shook his head. "Um…pooh-bray home-bray…"

"'Pobre hombre, probablemente ni siquiera estado en una cita'?" Lupe repeated. "Basically 'poor guy.' Just, in Spanish, not English."

"What's Spanish?" Marshall asked. Lupe stared at him in disbelief. He couldn't seriously be asking her…no, you couldn't fake that level of blankness. Marshall really didn't know what Spanish was.

"It's a language, developed in Spain," Lupe said. She made circling motions with her hands to help herself think. "It, uh, it's pretty common in the southern parts of the US, really similar to Portuguese but different, spoken in Mexico and most of South America…?"

"Um…you've only raised more questions," Marshall admitted. "Remember, I don't know much about things other than art and fighting. And I still don't get what 'Spanish' is. You said it was a language…?"

"Yeah," Lupe nodded slowly. "You don't know what a language is…?"

"No. Well, wait," he added, putting a hand to his chin. "I've heard of it. Anjilly tends to rant about it a lot. She says it's really important and that no one respects it. But I never got to ask her what it is."

"Uh…it's hard to explain…" Lupe considered the problem. "I suppose you could say a language is a way of saying something differently. We're talking in English, which is one kind of language. A minute ago I used Spanish, which is another language. Spanish lets me say pretty much the same things as English, only in a different way. You have to learn languages to understand them, but most people learn their first language from birth so its second nature to them. Sometimes people grow up bilingual, like me, because their family speaks both languages around them. That's why I know Spanish and English, I was raised in a family that spoke both."

"So…Spanish is another method of saying things?" Marshall's eyes lit up. "Then, if I say 'A book tightly shut is but a block of paper,' in Spanish it would be…?

Lupe stifled a groan. "Un libro bien cerradas no es más que un bloque de papel."

"Amazing!" Marshall's eyebrows shot up until they were almost a part of his hairline. "How long does it take to learn a 'language'?"

"For kids, you learn it until you're in elementary school," Lupe shrugged, "but once you're an adult, it takes longer. Five, six, seven years? More?"

"So, if I asked you to teach me…?" Marshall's eyes were practically sparkling.

"Wait, teach you?" Lupe paused. "I, um, I'm not sure if I'm qualified to teach people…plus, I have classes…"

"I'll talk to Karen about it!" Marshall said. "You can be my assistant, help me organize things and stuff, and teach me Spanish then! Maybe I can get you extra credit with it, or have you excluded from the late-night training sessions Karen's going to start springing on you guys at random next week…?"

"Woah, she's gonna do what now?" Lupe's eyes shot wide open. "I—yes! Sign me up or something! Please! Anything for sleep!"

"Really?" Marshall's face lit up even more, if that was possible. "Thanks…thanks! Wow! I…I can't wait!" Lupe was tempted to roll her eyes when something occurred to her.

"Hey…there's an interest," she blurted. Marshall's face returned to blank. "You don't know much about yourself, right? Because you're only three weeks old?" Lupe reminded him. "But you want to learn Spanish…so, there's an interest of yours. Languages."

Marshall's eyes started to bug out. "You're right!" He exclaimed, a huge smile starting to spread over his face. "I do like the thought of learning a 'language'! I'm learning about myself!"

Lupe was instantly reminded of a saying from a poster near her locker at school. "'Learning is a treasure that will follow its owner everywhere,'" she quoted. Marshall stopped smiling to stare at Lupe.

"Wow," he said. "That was lovely!"

"I guess…?" Lupe ventured a smile of her own. "Um…you stopped stirring the glue."

"What?" Marshall looked down. "Ah! And the fire's still going!" He reached down and grabbed the pot, trying to lift it off the stand. It was warm from the fire licking its bottom and the glue being heated, and so naturally it burned his hand. "Ow!" The pot tipped over, spilling its contents onto the ground and wrecking a couple of canvases.

"Woah! Careful!" Lupe cried, darting forward to try and pick up the pot. Her boot landed in the middle of the glue-soot mix, which hadn't been stirred enough to deserve the revered title of "ink." It splashed up onto her pants, effectively ruining them. Marshall stumbled backwards, running into Lupe. The two crashed to the ground, ruining another canvas.

"So sorry…" Marshall muttered guiltily.

"You're gonna make me stew glue for another two hours, aren't you?"

"Actually, what with cleaning, it's going to be more like three hours…"

"I hate my life."

* * *

Zerkz flicked a nightcrawler off his leg, too deep in thought to pay it much attention. He was thinking about Suki, and how skilled a warrior she was, and how amazing she was with her fans. And she'd clearly put a lot of work into her training, too. Why else would someone so young be the leader of the Kyoshi Warriors?

It was too bad there weren't many other Suki fans. If there were, he would have started a club to counter the "Down With Mary-Suki Club" the Boomerang Babes had begun. Actually, maybe he could still start that club. That one Water Tribe guy, Sunan, he seemed like the sort who wouldn't mind joining, if asked.

At least Suki taught Bestiology 101. Too bad he wouldn't have that class until tomorrow. The day was Wednesday, in the fourth week of classes, and there was supposed to some sort of test at the end of the week.

The Earth King—Kuei, although students were forbidden from calling him that—fiddled with a laser pointer/clicker thingy. Someone really needed to figure out what they were called, not that there was any sort of hint to an author there. The Earth King somehow managed to dim the lights in the Earth Hall and pull up the day's presentation. Looking extremely pleased with himself, he stepped forward and began to speak.

"Class, today will be a review day," he informed everyone. "You will have a test on...uh...what was the name?"

"Fry Day," Haru said.

"Oh! Yes. You will have a test on Fry Day on the basics of the Earth Kingdom that we have covered so far. To make sure you know the information, we will be going over the very basics of how the Earth Kingdom is presented in the series. I hope you will all find yourselves with 100's once the week is done."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Toph grumbled. She was leaning against Bosco, lazily picking her nose with one finger. "Just turn the slides on."

"Um, Toph, he already did," Haru informed her. Toph opened her mouth to say something—likely insulting—then closed it again. She folded her arms and blew at a strand of hair tickling her upper lip.

"Well, anyways, let's take another look at the mighty Earth Kingdom," Earth King Kuei suggested. He pointed to the slide currently up, which read "The Mighty Earth Kingdom." "It is the largest of the four nations in terms of land mass, and also in terms of population. Much of our land was conquered by the Fire Nation during the War, and many villages were forced to work like slaves in order to retrieve valuable natural resources for the Fire Nation."

"The Fire Nation also took Earthbenders away from their families, and imprisoned them on metal rigs in the middle of the ocean," Haru added. "Earthbending in many rural areas of the Earth Kingdom has suffered greatly."

"But that's for later in the semester," Earth King Kuei finished for Haru. "Let's take a look at the people of the Earth Kingdom." He changed the slide, and a wall of text with a picture of eight Earth Kingdom noblewomen popped up. "People in the Earth Kingdom tend to have what you would call "Asian" features. However, like your Real World Asia, the Earth Kingdom is huge, so there are a lot of different ethnicities, which means there are a lot of different genetics. Skin tone, for instance. In the Earth Kingdom, we have skin tones ranging from very dark, like Guru Pahtik, to tan, like the Sandbenders, to light, like those people who come from far north or south of the equator. Members of the nobility have lighter skin tones, possibly due to ethnic differences from peasants or the fact that peasants have to work in the sun all day while nobles can stay inside. Earth Kingdom citizens have brown or black hair, which we tend to keep long and pull up into buns, topknots, braids, or emu-ponytails."

"Where are the blondes?" Ishi Bananas called.

"There aren't any," Haru replied. "I don't know if Karen or anyone else has made this point with you yet, but the Avatar world does not have blondes. Suki's hair is sort of reddish, but that's the furthest the deviation goes. As an Asian fantasy world, dark hair colors are common."

"As for eyes," the Earth King continued, "we usually have brown, green, or gray eyes. Citizens of Kyoshi Island may also have blue or blue-green eyes."

"What, no fancy colors?" Elise. No last name. said. "What about purple? Or red or something?"

"Ah...no," said the Earth King.

"Not fair! I mean, the Fire Nation gets yellow! That's cool! And we've just got boring old green and brown?"

Haru and the Earth King exchanged glances. "Well," said Haru, "given the war and Fire Nation colonization, it is possible to have an Earth Kingdom citizen with yellow eyes...but that'll be covered at a later date. So, moving on..."

"Is it my turn to talk yet?" Toph piped up. She had finished picking her nose, and had moved on to her toes.

"Not yet," Haru apologized to her. "We've still got to talk about clothing and the Earth Kingdom emblem. You're up after that."

"Meh…more time for my toes," Toph shrugged. Earth King Kuei clicked the next slide up.

"As you can see from these two pictures, there is a huge variation in what peasants wear compared to nobles," the Earth King said, pointing at the screen. "Nobles wear much more colorful clothing with more complex designs, whereas commoners' clothing is simpler and comes in muted tones. You can identify a person's socio-economic status by the amount of color in their outfit. Yellows, bright greens, and the like are more commonly worn by nobles, where darker greens and browns are often seen on peasants' clothing."

"Also, men in the Southern and Western parts of the Earth Kingdom tend to wear their hair in topknots more than men in other regions." Haru pointed to his own topknot with a grin. "You can tell the difference between Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation topknots by the fact that ours are usually more rounded, like a bun. Also, we use green bands to secure them, not red."

"In Ba Sing Se, noblewomen wrap their hair around wooden supports and adorn it with flowers and jewelry." Earth King Kuei reached up to tap a noblewoman in a picture on the screen. The white sheet rippled eerily from his touch. "There are lots of different types of hair supports, too, meaning you can match them with your outfit."

"And people in Omashu wear turbans," Haru finished. "As well as tunics over robes or pants. Their clothing is usually paler in color than normal Earth Kingdom commoners wear, too."

Earth King Kuei changed the slide, this time to a wall of text imposed over the Earth Kingdom emblem. "You've all probably noticed this symbol in various places around campus," he began. "Primarily in locations where Earth Kingdom students are supposed to go. It can be found on your uniform's belts and on the bookbags of Earth Kingdom students. The design is based on ancient Chinese coins from the Real World. Earth Kingdom coins are also modeled after the emblem."

"The emblem is meant to represent the figurative and literal depth of the Earth Kingdom," Haru added, "the depth of its citizens and the deep layers of rock Earthbenders are able to manipulate."

"Rock! Land! Yes! Please tell me it's my turn!" Toph bolted to her feet. Before Haru or the Earth King could say anything, she turned to the audience. "As a member of Team Avatar, I've traveled the Earth Kingdom extensively, and as such I'd like to think I know a thing or two about its landscape. There should be pictures on the slide that—"

"Um, Toph, it's still on the slide with the national emblem," Haru whispered. The sound carried to the very back of the Earth Hall. Toph went bright pink, and muttered something unintelligible. Earth King Kuei changed the slides to one titled "The Land," and Haru whispered for Toph to start over.

"So, uh…land!" Toph recovered her line of thought. "You may have heard me mention not too long ago that I have traveled quite a bit, and as such, I've learned about the different terrains of the Earth Kingdom. Due to my unique method of sight, I can tell you things about the ground that you wouldn't be able to learn otherwise. First, however, I would like to ask you to consider the shape of the Earth Kingdom—Kuei, can you go to the next slide quick? Is it up? Thanks…all right, what does that look like to you?"

"It kinda looks like Europe, Asia, and Africa," Cyrus Windfall—who was delighted to be able to answer a question of Toph's—shouted enthusiastically. "That bit up on the top left, your right, could be Europe, and then to the east it could be like Asia, and underneath it is sorta like Africa!"

"Interesting observations," Toph shrugged. "Not that I know what you're talking about, since I sorta can't see anything that's not made of metal or earth. But—and I'm pretty sure Karen talked to you about this Saturday before last—the geography just doesn't line up. It may look a lot like the Real World's Europe, and Asia, and Africa, but if you impose a map of that area over the Earth Kingdom you'll see just how unlikely that is."

"I think we could explain it better if we knew what the Real World's Europe, Asia, and Africa actually look like," Earth King Kuei commented.

"Probably," Toph agreed. "Until then, let's continue. Go back to the other slide." Kuei complied, and Toph continued. "There are two different kinds of forests—those composed mostly of coniferous trees, meaning ones with needles like pine trees, and those composed mostly of coniferous trees, like oak trees. Both kinds of forest appear in the Earth Kingdom. They can even be in the same general area, transitioning from one to the other.

"Another…uh, what was that word Karen told me to use? 'Ecosystem'? What does that even mean…? So, another 'ecosystem' that exists in the Earth Kingdom is swamps. Swamps are like forests, only the ground is mostly covered in water. The Foggy Swamp Water Tribe lives in a swamp, and as you may have noticed from the Foggy Swamp students, they don't wear pants. Karen never gets tired of that."

"'Pants are an illusion, and so is death,'" Haru intoned in a fairly accurate rendition of Karen's voice. Toph and Bosco snortled, while Earth King Kuei frowned and scratched his head in puzzlement.

Zerkz wasn't paying full attention, though. He was too busy thinking…wasn't that Sunan guy a Foggy Swamp student? He was sorta weird…

"The Si Wong Desert, the only traditional desert shown in the series, is also found in the Earth Kingdom," Toph continued her lecture. "I was stuck in it for a few days, and let me tell you, it's not fun. Harsh sun, shifting sand—after a little while I couldn't see at all! Everything was all fuzzy…but there's a huge rock in the middle that's magnetic or something, whatever it was. It's the only solid land in the whole desert, but it's got a bunch of buzzard-wasps living inside it in a bunch of artificial caves they made. Sokka tried eating some of the goop off the wall—what an idiot, huh?"

"There are also a lot of mountains in the Earth Kingdom," Haru took the clicker-thingy from Earth King Kuei and changed to the map slide, and pointed to a mountain range along the Earth Kingdom's southern coast. "They're all situated along coastlines, or near water. As you can see, the Si Wong Desert borders some mountains as well. Karen said she…uh, "googled" deserts, and found out that they usually have mountains on one side that trap clouds and rainwater."

"Another interesting fact: the North and South Poles can be classified as deserts, too," Earth King Kuei put in. "A desert is an area with little or no rainfall, and few—if any—kinds of vegetation."

"Hey, we have more slides to get to," Toph butted in. "The final type of terrain commonly found in the Earth Kingdom is plains. The land south of Ba Sing Se is supposed to be arid plains."

"The Earth Kingdom also has a good amount of natural resources," Haru changed the slide again. "While it's true that we have lots of coal, precious metals and stones, and rock for building material, that's not all. Our land is very fertile, allowing us to cultivate a wide variety of crops. These crops, and wild plants, allow for the animals of the Earth Kingdom to be well-fed and strong.

"The forests of the Earth Kingdom are another important resource. Timber from the Earth Kingdom is used for construction, firewood, and creating carved decorations such as statues or beads. Seeing as the Fire Nation cleared away many of their forests—which were of the tropical variety—a long time ago for their war effort, the Earth Kingdom is the main source of wood in our world. We also have a great variety of trees, which give various types of wood to be used."

"Our people are also an important resource," Earth King Kuei held up a finger. "Citizens such as the Mechanist invent amazing machines that can be used to advance our standards of living. Older innovations include the postage and sewer systems of Omashu, which are among the most advanced in the Earth Kingdom."

"Plus the postage system makes for a great superslide," Toph snickered. "Haru, what's next?"

"Ah…looks like the government," Haru changed the slide again. He turned to Earth King Kuei expectantly. Kuei, who had just started playing pat-a-cake with Bosco, took a moment to realize someone was looking at him and glanced up in confusion.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Government," Toph blew at a strand of hair tickling her nose.

"Oh! Right!" he exclaimed, leaping back to his feet. "The Earth Kingdom is what is called a 'confederate monarchy.' At the top is the Earth King—me. In Ba Sing Se, there are also various ministries that oversee different sections of the government - Long Feng, for instance, is the Minister of Culture. Then there are the rulers of various regions of the Earth Kingdom. While these other regions are considered mostly autonomous, they still send troops and some monetary support to me in Ba Sing Se. It's been argued that I should simply be called the King of Ba Sing Se, instead of the Earth King, because I technically don't have much control over other monarchs—like the King of Omashu—or some of the various tribes that inhabit my kingdom."

"Plus you've been a figurehead most of your life," Toph added, sticking her finger up her nose.

"That too," the Earth King looked down sadly. "I took the throne at the age of four, which gave Long Feng the chance to take control as the Grand Secretariat of Ba Sing Se. Since I never had much political power growing up, I wound up ignorant of everything that was happening in my land."

"Whatever," Toph flicked a booger towards the audience. Amy Ochanian and Ishi Bananas dived to the side, barely dodging it. Midori B.M. only saw it at the last minute, and threw herself backwards onto Cyrus Windfall's lap, creating a rather awkward situation for the two.

"Um, so, King Bumi is an example of the ruler of an autonomous region," Haru took over. "He rules the city of Omashu and presumably the surrounding lands. While he must answer to the Earth King, he has mostly free reign over the land under his control."

"Meaning he can use his city's postal system as a super slide whenever he wants," Toph grinned. "He has it good."

"I still haven't gotten to ride it," the Earth King pouted. "Things have been too busy lately."

"All right, you two, let's move on." Haru half-smiled and changed slides. "Food in the Earth Kingdom."

"Seeing as the Earth Kingdom is the largest of the Four Nations, there is quite a bit of variation in what people eat in the different regions," the Earth King explained. "This is similar to what Karen says you see in Real-World China, where foods from different areas have different spices and flavors despite being basically the same. Rice is a common staple throughout the Earth Kingdom, and the basis for many kinds of dishes. Wild game and domestic animals also vary, allowing for a wide variety of foods."

"And the most common drink we have is tea," Toph finished. "Iroh makes the best, but there are a lot of places to go for some if you can't afford the prices at the Jasmine Dragon."

"The most common types of tea are lychee, black, and green," Haru added. "There's also jasmine, ginseng, rose, and a variety of other teas. White Dragon is one of the rarest and most delicious, but you have to be careful not to use the poisonous White Jade by accident."

"There's a typo in the series involving that, actually," Earth King Kuei interjected. "Before Iroh escapes from the Boiling Rock, a guardwoman named Ming brings him White Jade tea. Seeing as the White Jade plant is poisonous and should never be consumed—as Iroh learned the hard way early in season two—we can only guess the Creators forgot about that point."

"Next, spring," Haru changed slides. "Spring is an extremely important season in the Earth Kingdom, since it's, well, ours. Each nation, and its element, has a corresponding season. Some people think that's when the nation's Bending is at its strongest, and that the highest number of Benders are born during that season." He paused, then added, "Anjilly wanted me to point out that this is more fanon than canon, but it is an interesting interpretation. Anyways, as I said, the Earth Kingdom's season is spring, when plants are reborn and renewed, animals shed their winter coats, and most animal babies are born."

"Basically, spring is the season of the earth," Toph scratched the back of her head, "and it's also the season when I met Aang and the team. Appa was shedding like mad about then, and while his fur makes great material for wigs and beards and stuff, it left this trail that let Azula follow us."

"I think they remember that from the series," Haru reminded his fellow Earthbender.

"Whatever."

"So, moving to the final topic…" Haru clicked up the next slide. "Cultural basis in the Real World. I'll admit, I have no idea what Chinese or Korean things look like, but apparently they're similar to hairstyle, architecture, and geography in the Earth Kingdom. Also similar is the fact that China, like the Earth Kingdom, has multiple ethnic groups. Karen says there are about fifty, with the Han—whoever they are—being the most numerous. Traditional Chinese designs bear close similarities to Earth Kingdom clothing designs, excluding the fact that Earth Kingdom citizens wear greens, browns, and yellows, while the Chinese could wear pretty much any color they could afford."

"And with that, we conclude today's review session," the Earth King beamed at the class. "We hope you all pass your tests with flying colors! After the tests are over, we'll begin to study the various locations around the Earth Kingdom, such as towns and landmarks. Have a nice day!" Haru turned to the end of the slideshow as the lights in the student's section brightened. Zerkz really didn't have anything to say to the huge cookie and the words "This presentation brought to you by a crazy chick who really likes cookies"—it was kind of true.

Hm. That Sunan kid would be getting out of "Water Tribe Warriors" in the Water Hall about now, right? Zerkz might as well go hunt him down and propose the idea of the Suki club to him…

* * *

**Hopefully you learned a few things, and have been entertained by the shenanigans of yourselves and your fellow students.**

**I would also like to ask all my registered students to-if they can-send in a detailed description of their ideal Avatarverse outfit. When I say detailed, I mean _detailed_-if I don't get enough detail in your review, I will start firing questions at you like there's no tomorrow until I have enough information to paint a proper mental picture. Things like color, cut, the lengths of various parts and smaller things like trim and buttons and fabric patterns (if any)...I want them _all_.**

**Hm. I could really go for a burger...**


	13. Of Thirteen and the Fourth Wall

**Christmas Eve post. Not much else to say.**

* * *

It was Friday of the fifth week of classes, and Karen, Agent (well, Probationary Agent) of the Protectors of the Plot Continuum, future slayer of Mary Sues (hopefully), self-proclaimed Cookie Lord and devoutly violent person…was scared out of her wits.

"Something terrible is going to happen today," Karen hissed to Anjilly, who was trying to get her partner to stop hiding in a corner. "I just know it! It's Friday the Thirteenth!"

"Karen, today's the first of October," Anjilly rolled her eyes.

"Friday the Thirteenth of October? Even worse!"

"The _first_ of October, the _first_!" Anjilly groaned and rubbed her temples. "Why would you think it's the thirteenth?"

"It's the thirteenth _chapter_, Anj!" Karen gestured wildly with her hands, smacking herself in the eye. "Ow."

"Stop acting hysterical and get up," Anjilly sighed, choosing to ignore the "chapter" thing. "We need to make plans for the Mid-Autumn Festival…which we should have celebrated on September twelfth with the rest of the Real World."

"But this is an OFU fic," Karen shook her head. "We're in the Avatarverse. The lunar calendar here and the lunar calendar in the Real World don't match up. Also, the author is lazy."

"...What?" Anjilly asked.

"The author," Karen repeated, "is lazy."

One of the room's walls made an ominous groaning sound. Anjilly side-eyed it and gave a nervous laugh. "Author? What author? Whatever are you talking about, Karen?"

"Oh, come on Anj, you know _exactly _what I'm talking about," Karen said. "Anyway, isn't it about time for a scene change? We should be able to see the Zukomancers trying to glomp Zuko (again)…"

"KAREN—"

* * *

Zuko turned a corner into another hall, and paused. He swore he kept hearing giggling, and it came from all around him. The hallways either carried sounds like you wouldn't believe, or made it next to impossible to hear a person standing next to you. Zuko was in the former sort of hallway. And he could swear he was hearing…

But he didn't have time to think about that. Thanks to Karen's paranoia about this being the thirteenth chapter of the story, and the threatening shaking of the walls whenever that fact was brought up, Anjilly had asked Zuko to do a sweep of the school for any possible trouble.

Zuko...hadn't really understood the point. Neither had most of the other canons.

_"Wait, why is __**today**__ supposed to be worse than any other day?" Katara had asked._

_"Because Karen insists it's Friday the Thirteenth," Anjilly sighed. "And thirteen is an unlucky number. Especially when combined with Friday."_

_Team Avatar exchanged glances. Even after several weeks, they still hadn't quite grasped the concept of this Fry Day thing, but they did know their numbers. "Wait," said Aang. "Thirteen is unlucky?"_

_"Of course it isn't," huffed Sokka. "That's just a bunch of superstitious mumbo jumbo. Like Aunt Wu's fortunetelling. Totally not real."_

_"Besides," said Toph, "I don't know why you'd say __**thirteen **__is a bad number. It's perfectly fine!"_

_Anjilly thought for a moment. "Ah," she said after a moment. "You're right. It's really only unlucky in Western cultures..."_

_"So, the Fire Nation?" Katara asked, looking at Zuko._

_"Real World Western cultures," Anjilly said. "In the East, it's actually a pretty lucky number. And you guys' culture is based on the East... Yeah, I guess thirteen wouldn't be unlucky to you at all, would it? Huh. Maybe four would be, though, since it sounds like 'death' in Chinese...very unlucky number."_

_"We're the Four Nations," Zuko pointed out. "Our entire world revolves around four elements. I don't think we'd consider four unlucky."_

_"Right, right," Anjilly said. "Look, the point is that Karen's going crazier than usual and is convinced that something catastrophic is going to happen today. Can we __**please**__ make sure nothing does?"_

_Team Avatar groaned. "Does it have to be __**us**__?" Toph asked. "__**We're**__ the ones who get stampeded the most!"_

_Anjilly sighed. "Alright, never mind. Long Feng's been wanting to use the Dai Li as security, anyway - "_

_Sokka pulled out his boomerang. "LET'S GO PATROL SOME HALLWAYS, GUYS!"_

The other members of Team Avatar had taken the best spots (read: places fangirls were unlikely to be found), leaving Zuko with the task of searching the classroom and student dormitory sections (which used to be the cell blocks and old prison staff section, respectively).

So here he was, wandering the most student-filled halls of the school, himself the most lusted-after character. Something about that seemed wrong, but seeing as Sokka had drawn the longest straw, allowing him to assign everyone else a section of OFUA:TLA to deal with, Zuko didn't have much choice in the matter.

Seriously, he knew he was hearing giggles! Where were they coming from?

Zuko surreptitiously slipped a hand into his pocket, and brought out a bison whistle specifically modified to call his Misspelling Lemurs. At the first sign of fangirls, he would summon them. Zuiko and Zukko were feeling particularly bloodthirsty of late.

With a quick glance around—and a burst of more giggles—Zuko continued on his way. Despite the fact that this section of OFUA:TLA was where the most students could be found, the hallways were empty. This fact put Zuko on edge rather than at ease. This wasn't good empty. It was eerily empty. Terrifyingly empty. No-one-can-hear-you-scream empty.

The giggles weren't reassuring.

Maybe once he was done with this check, he'd go do something relaxing. Something to calm his nerves. Something that involved absolutely no students. Especially not Zukomancers or Zutarans. Something like...having a romantic picnic with Mai.

Actually, that sounded wonderful. Zuko promised himself he'd grab Mai once he was done with this patrol. She'd complain about how impulsive he was, probably, but she'd stop once they settled down in some quiet, secluded place with a heaping plate of fruit tarts. He wasn't sure where they'd go, exactly - he'd leave that up to her. This _was_ the Boiling Rock, after all, and her uncle _was _the warden of the place, so it stood to reason that she knew more about it than he did.

Happy with his plans, Zuko nodded to himself and rounded a corner—

-and found himself face-to-face with the majority of the Zukomancer Club.

"It's Zuko!" Ashee Bieber screeched in excitement.

"Get him!" Christina Soh cried, lunging forward.

WHOMP!

"I haven't even blown the whistle yet," Zuko commented as his Misspelling Lemurs arrived on the scene. Jessica Carden and Fyre Elaine wailed in terror as Zuke, Zukoand, Zuni, and Zulo ganged up on them. The two were dragged off thrashing and screaming to whatever horrors awaited them. Zuko considered laughing derisively at the fangirls' pain, but decided against it. He was supposed to be a good guy now.

"Zuzu! Pleeease!" Scarlet Johnson wailed, reaching out to him. "You know I'm your true love! Leave that heartless bitch Mai and come to meeee!"

"As if! He's mine!" Amy Ochanian attempted to lunge at Scarlet, but the lemurs Zuku, Zuo, and Zuiko dive-bombed them. Both fangirls were dragged off screaming for Zuko to save them.

"No! Nooooo!" Izar Laun sobbed, clutching at Nathaniel Willowshaunt desperately. "Don't let them get me…don't let them get meeeee!"

"Get off! Before they take me too!" Nathaniel shoved at his fellow fanboy. Zuko'a, Zuku, and Suko took the opportunity to latch on, and pulled the boys away.

Lauphen Staar and Somariel, two of the brighter fangirls, had begun to run away the moment the lemurs appeared. They were closely followed by Cyrus Windfall, who was wailing about how he should have taken up Huanzhe's offer to attend the "The Fire Nation Is The Greatest Civilization In The World And The Only Reason Anyone Says Otherwise Is Because They're Too Primitive To Know Better" Club meeting. Zukjo, Zu,ko, ZUko, Ziko, Price Zuko, Sufi Zuko, and Auko took the three down.

Zuko smiled as one of his favorite Misspellings, Zzuko, landed on his shoulder. Zzuko began to rub his head against Zuko's cheek, giving a lemur-purr. The Misspellings would really need a reward after such a spectacular job…oh yes, Zuko shuddered as Meep Megdaline and Somariel clawed at the floor with their extra-long fangirl nails, trying to escape. A spectacular job indeed.

* * *

Lupe looked around the Fire Hall and frowned, wondering where Meep and Lauphen, not to mention half the female students and a few of the male ones, had gone. [-] kept glancing at the empty seat between him and Lupe mournfully, occasionally reaching out to assure himself that Meep had not simply gone invisible and was indeed missing.

"I'm sure they're just a little bit late," Lupe assured her friend. "Don't worry about them, they're off doing crazy Meep and Lauphen things."

"But what if they're in some sort of trouble?" [-] sighed. "Meep doesn't have RoyRoy with her! She could get hurt!" Lupe rolled her eyes at the mention of Meep's rat, which Sofia Jayne Owens had declared was actually a Pikachu sometime during the fourth week of classes. RoyRoy had taken to roaming the hallways without his owner, shocking staff and students alike when they wondered what the small creature was doing. Literally, shocking. With the exception of Iroh, who, along with mastering the lightning redirection technique, was also capable of redirecting static electricity. Zuko, unfortunately, didn't have his uncle's reflexes, and had been dogpiled by a dozen students intent on "healing" him from the nasty static shock RoyRoy had given him. Mai had gotten quite a lot of knife-throwing practice in that day.

"We're all in trouble!" William GP leaned forward from the row of seats behind Lupe and [-]. His eyes were as wide as saucers. "Haven't you heard? It's GrammarBootCamp tomorrow! The bane of all Fanfiction University students!"

"I find that hard to believe," Daniel Clemens put in, reaching forward and pulling William back into his seat. "It's just another seminar. Karen'll probably ramble about cookies and lecture us about our grammar, then send us off to write a paper or something."

"I cannot wait to see your face during the torture," Shiri laughed. She was sitting in the row behind Daniel and William, polishing her staff (which sprung blades from each end when twisted just so). "I've heard stories. So long as you can answer questions correctly, you'll be able to make it through with minimum injury. Being strong helps, too. And all of those early-morning training sessions have really gotten me into shape! Check out my muscle!" Pulling back her sleeve, Shiri displayed a pale bicep that wasn't as soft as it had been upon her arrival.

"We're all getting more in shape," Daniel patted his arm with a grin. "It's the one good thing of getting up way too early in the morning to train. Master Piandao is starting me on basic cuts with my katana next week. He says I've started to get the hang of the basic motions with the wooden sword, so he's letting me use the real thing!"

"The real thing is heavy," Lupe scowled, thinking of her broadswords. While they were getting a little bit easier to carry, it was still murder to swing them around like she was supposed to during training. How did her Zuzu do it in the series?

"Still, it's almost time for class to start, and Meep's not here!" [-] fidgeted in his seat. "The resident Mary Sue could have gotten her!"

"Who?" Emma looked up at [-] from the seat in front of Lupe.

"Suki," Zuna sighed and slouched in her seat next to Lupe. "Everyone here thinks Suki is a Mary Sue, except for some Earth Kingdom student. I think he's delusional."

"I think your mom's delusional," Emma rolled her eyes. "And stop it with the goth act, will you? It's not making you any cooler for Zuko."

"I'm not interested in Zuko. I'm interested in Mai," Zuna sighed. "Why does nobody understand this?"

"I understand this," [-] leaned forward. "So, uh, if you ever actually manage to make out with Mai or something, do you think I could maybe get a recording of it…?"

"Me too, me too!" Daniel Clemens grinned. William GP snapped out of his "we're all gonna die a horrible death at GrammarBootCamp tomorrow" mood and stared dreamily into the distance.

"You disgust me," Emma wrinkled her nose. "When me and Azula get to third base, I'm locking the door to the room."

"They'll probably have cameras in it," Lupe groaned and rubbed her temples. "Or at least, the Staff will. And why would you want to get Azula when Zuko is perfectly good and sexy already?"

"Don't you want Zuko?" Owlson Pierce piped up from her seat next to Emma. "Wouldn't him having more lusters be giving you more competition?"

"No, because there's no doubt in my mind that once Zuko actually looks at me he'll fall head-over-heels in love," Lupe sniffed. "And seeing as I'm taking on a part-time job as Marshall Arts' assistant, I'm going to be spending time with the Staff. Don't worry, I'll say nice things about you guys to your lust objects. If you're nice to me, of course. I start next week."

"Shh, class is starting!" Shiri pointed to the stage, where Yue had just rolled Tui and La's fishbowl onstage. Hei Bai wasn't far behind, escorting an older woman with gray-streaked hair in yellow and orange robes. Lupe thought she seemed familiar—something to do with fortune telling?

"Everybody, today we will be examining a frequent theme that appears with spirits in fanfictions: Predicting the future," Yue announced. "We have with us Aunt Wu, a fortuneteller and expert in predicting the future, as a guest lecturer. She will be telling you all about her experiences with the mystical arts over the course of this class and the next week's classes. For today, we will start out with the basics of predicting the future. Aunt Wu?"

"Thank you, my dear," Aunt Wu smiled at the assembled students, then paused. "Ah…I was under the impression there would be more of you…?"

"The Zukomancers tried to ambush Zuko earlier," Yue explained with a small laugh. "Karen won't tell anyone what she's done with them, but Sokka told me he heard screaming from Azula's dungeons."

Hei Bai grunted, and somehow the noises were translated by the students' brains to mean, "No, that was Freeranger. She was investigating a plothole and accidentally saw urple."

"Oh my," Aunt Wu gasped. "That is one of the most blinding colors known to fandom! Does she still have eyes?"

"Barely," Hei Bai shook his head. "Karen said she would laugh about it tomorrow, when it is no longer Friday the Thirteenth Chapter. She refuses to say what she will do if there is a scene at the end of the chapter that takes place tomorrow during GrammarBootCamp."

There was a rumbling noise, and one of the Fire Hall's walls started shaking. Lupe eyed it suspiciously. "Um...what's that?"

"Oh dear," said Yue. "Hei Bai, you really need to be more careful about what you say! We need the fourth wall to stay stable enough to at least last until the end of this chapter!"

The wall started shaking even harder.

"...Oops," said Yue. "Um...moving on. So, Aunt Wu. Fortunetelling?"

"Yes," Aunt Wu nodded. "Now, students, predicting the future is very tricky. You see..."

As Aunt Wu gave her lecture, the wall's shaking subsided. After a few minutes, it'd stopped entirely. Lupe wondered what that had been about.

* * *

"I now call the eighth meeting of the Boomerang Babes Sokka Lusting Club to order!" Isabella Rose shouted, banging the hilt of a dagger on a table. They were meeting in a spare room—seeing as Karen's redesign of OFUA:TLA had resulted in a lot of random space with no clear purpose, there were a lot of those.

"We're missing a few members," Elise. No last name. noted. "I think the Zukomancers have been gone since this morning. They were planning on ganging up to glomp Zuko."

"Indeed they are," Isabella Rose nodded. "And since Vice President Scarlet Johnson is gone, it seems that I, President Isabella Rose, will have to run this meeting by myself. That said, would our Chair of Fanart please present to the club her latest information?"

"Gladly, President," Moon Dragon stood up and stacked a couple of files. "Sadly, our attempts to create original fanart while at OFUA:TLA have resulted in failure. Few of us can do anything beyond stick figures, even with the actual characters standing in front of us. Those who can seem to keep being tackled or dive-bombed by Misspelling Lemurs the moment they start to draw."

"What about your attempts to convince Marshall Arts, the staff artist, to draw for us?" Isabella Rose inquired.

"We can't reach him," Moon Dragon confessed. "He's nowhere to be found when we go looking for him, and his student assistant refuses to ask him for Sokka fanart. The Zukomancers are being very smug about it."

"Hm. We will return to this topic at a later issue," Isabella Rose decided. "What are our plans for the Mary Suki?"

"Stabbing!"

"Burning!"

"Killing!"

"Attempt to understand her and gracefully accept her relationship with Sokka?"

"Zerkz, stop sneaking into our meetings!" Elise. No last name. snapped. "Can someone throw him out? Thank you. Geez, why can't he just start his own club…?"

* * *

"And without further ado, I call the Suki Fans Club to order!" Zerkz beamed proudly at his fellow club members. "Roll call! Sunan?"

"Here," the pantsless Waterbender grinned cheerfully.

"Great, everyone's in attendance!" Zerkz's smile faded a bit. "Everyone's here…" His shoulders drooped. "All two of us…" He hung his head and sighed.

"It would have been one if you hadn't promised to listen to my analyzation of the Water Tribe's similarities to the Inuits," Sunan pointed out tactlessly. He was rather good at being tactless.

Zerkz slouched into a chair with a dejected sigh. His newly-formed club's conspicuous lack of members was just a little bit upsetting to him. Sunan pulled out a book (written in Chinese, like everything else at the school) and a scroll, then started translating it into English. Other students were paying through the nose for textbooks they could actually read.

"Look on the bright side," he offered to his friend. "We can do whatever we want, and it'll be in the name of club activities!"

"We're supposed to be doing stuff about how awesome Suki is…" Zerkz muttered.

"Well, maybe we could try composing poetry about her?" Sunan suggested. "Girls like poetry!"

"I'm guessing you haven't had a girlfriend in a long time," Zerkz glared at Sunan.

"How'd you know?"

* * *

Anjilly Ka was more than a little angry with her partner, her fellow staff, the students, and the whole chapter in general. The fourth wall had been shaking dangerously all day, the result of Karen pointing out the coincidence of this being Friday the Thirteenth Chapter (of October, no less!) to everyone over the loudspeakers.

Karen had finally agreed to come out of her corner, after much cajoling and bribing with cookies. She was sticking as closely to Anjilly as possible, glancing around every so often in paranoia.

The two of them were currently walking through the student section, looking to see if anyone else was thinking about doing some glomping. Karen had a cookie at the ready, and was praying for nothing to happen.

Ironic Overpower being the Ironic Overpower, of course something happened. Several students noticed the Authors of Their Pain (quite literally the authors, especially Karen, and is that an ominous cracking sound I hear from the Fourth Wall?). And, students being students, they banded together and came up with a plan…

Without warning, as Karen and Anjilly passed by the Earth Hall, the doors burst open and a loose conglomeration of students poured out. "Quick!" Arizona Mason screamed. "Throw it!"

"For Azuuuulaaaaaa!" Nicole Jackson screamed, lobbing an annoying teapot at the Course Coordinators. Mai4, to be precise, in her teapot form. The plotholes had been feeling vindictive earlier that day.

Anjilly caught the teapot expertly, and raised an eyebrow at the students. "I'm sure there's a good reason for why you're throwing alternate forms of your fellow students at me," she remarked dryly.

"You…you're not being plotholed away…" Ishi Bananas blinked, then facepalmed. "I knew I should have gone to the library with Joe and Andy!"

"They're not studying anything school-related, you know," Carsten D sighed.

"See, Karen? Nothing terrible is happening," Anjilly turned to her partner. "Just the students, and a feeble attempt to take us out of the picture."

"I tell you, there _will_ be horror!" Karen insisted. "There _will_be blood!" She turned and narrowed her eyes, making the students cower. "Mostly from these foolish students who lobbed a teapot at us. Anj, care to join me?"

"Have fun," Anjilly said, rolling her eyes. "I'll go see if I can turn Ms. Tong back into a human being."

"Hooray for violence!" Karen cheered, pulling out a few sharpened cookies. "Students, prepare for pain! Yes, Ms. Midori and Ms. Ai Da, that means you too! Allison Doyle, Vera Moretti, Danish, why are you trying to run away? Whoops, were those my cookies? My goodness, I've no idea how that happened! Oh, Nathan Hofstad, whyever are you doubled over like you're in extreme pain? Could it be because of the overburnt snickerdoodle I just threw at your midsection? Surely not…no, senor dangao pickle, I'm not calling you Shirley. I am, however, pinning you to the wall with sugar cookie shurikens!"

"My partner is so very mature," Anjilly observed. "Karen, that's all of them. Stop advancing on Theodore James White threateningly and come with me. It looks like we need to find a plothole and toss Ms. Tong through it to reverse the damage."

"Aww, but Aaaanj…" Karen pouted.

"No buts," Anjilly said, tucking the teapot under her arm. "We'll go find Marshall and ask him to walk around with the teapot. She'll turn back into herself when he wanders into another plothole."

"He does that a lot." Karen tucked her baked weapons into her pockets.

"It's because he still doesn't have much characterization," Anjilly shrugged. "I think they'll stop targeting him once he starts to figure out what he's like."

"The other day he couldn't answer when Iroh asked him what his favorite flavor of tea was," Karen looked down. "It's a terrible day when you can't even tell what kind of tea you like. _Terrible_, I tell you!"

Anjilly raised an eyebrow. "Karen, I'm the tea lover, not you. You're the cookie freak. Since when do you care about tea?"

And the plothole struck.

* * *

Suki leafed through the papers in her hand as she walked down the hallway, trying to determine which one was her class syllabus for the next week of "Bestiology and You." Kenji the Ba Sing Se zookeeper was essentially illiterate, knowing only the characters for his name and those of some animals (as well as the one for "snickerdoodle," but he didn't use it very often), and Aang had important Avatar duties to tend to-namely, cooking Katara a romantic, vegetarian dinner. Thus, Suki was the one saddled with all the paperwork and planning for their class, even though she was the one who knew the least about animals.

"I cannot wait for this semester to be over," the head of the Kyoshi Warriors muttered to herself. Maybe a little training would help with the stress; she'd been somewhat lax ever since OFUA:TLA started. And for someone used to training for hours a day, every day, paperwork just wasn't fun.

"…can't, Yue."

Suki's ears immediately perked up. That had been Sokka's voice just now. And he had said "Yue." From what she could tell, her boyfriend was in a spare room up ahead—talking to Yue.

"Sokka, I know how hard this must be, but please think about the situation!" Yue's voice drifted to Suki's ears, tone pleading. "Have you really forgotten about me?"

"You know I could never," Sokka said firmly. "Yue, I will always think of you, no matter where I am or who I'm with. But…you're the Moon Spirit now. We can never be together."

"We can be here, Sokka!" Yue cried. Suki pressed herself against the wall and inched over to the slightly-ajar door to the room, peering in as best she could. Yue and Sokka were sitting on a couch, Yue's hands firmly clasping Sokka's.

"This place won't last forever," Sokka tugged his hands away. He looked down at the floor, expression unreadable. "I don't want to do that to Suki—only be with her when I can't have you. She doesn't deserve that sort of man."

"Sokka, we can stay here, together, as long as we like," Yue placed a hand on Sokka's cheek, turning him to face her. "We can be together as long as you like. Karen told me yesterday when I asked that we could live here for the rest of our lives, the rest of eternity if our fandom lasts that long, and be together for all of that time." Sokka's eyes turned away. "Don't you want to be with me forever?"

"I do!" Sokka exclaimed, voice hoarse. Suki thought her heart might break, and silently clapped a hand over her mouth to keep herself from making any noise. Tears threatened to spill out of her eyes. Sokka…her Sokka…was he going to leave her?

Suki wouldn't be surprised if he did, honestly. She'd always known he still loved Yue, from those nights he spent watching the moon or reading sappy love poems about the moon. When they'd first watched the Ember Island Players perform "The Boy in the Iceberg," Sokka had been in tears while watching the scene about his parting with Yue. If Suki tried to tease him about making out with the Moon Spirit, he'd go quiet, and not talk until the subject changed.  
Her Sokka…would he leave her? Suki had heard enough. She tiptoed away, completely missing the rest of the conversation.

"I can't do this to Suki, Yue," Sokka insisted. "Yue, I love you, but I love Suki too. And even if we _could _stay in this crackfic forever, the constant attempts at humor and breaking of the fourth wall would get old." The wall behind him had a sudden shaking fit, but neither of them paid attention to it. "We'd want to leave, and then where would we be?"

"Sokka…" Yue whispered, voice cracking.

"I can't betray Suki like this," Sokka told her gently. "I'm sorry. But I won't betray one woman I want to spend my life with to have a little time with the woman I can't be with forever." He put covered Yue's hand on his cheek with his own, and squeezed. "I love you."

"I love you too," Yue choked out, tears threatening to spill over. "But you love her more."

"No," Sokka said firmly. "I love you both the same. But Suki's the one I've made a commitment to now, and she's the one I have to pick."

Yue began to sob. She stood up and dashed out the door, running the direction opposite the one Suki had taken.

Sokka half-raised himself off the couch, then plopped back onto it. "I suck with girls…" He moaned.

* * *

Karen was munching on a cookie. Marshall Arts was scribbling something on a piece of paper with a stick of charcoal, both of which he'd produced from inside his gi. Anjilly was desperately trying to figure out where they were and how to get out, and wondering what to do with the annoying teapot she was holding. The plothole had dropped the three - four? - somewhere deep inside the bowels of OFUA:TLA.

"Is nobody else here concerned at the fact that there's no door?" Anjilly demanded, sweeping a hand around at the eight-walled room. "Or windows, or basic food supplies, or a bathroom…"

"Not really," Marshall shrugged. "Don't forget, we got here by plothole. We'll get out as soon as one of us needs something not conveniently available here. That, or that something will get thrown in here with us. And we do have food supplies. You'll notice Karen's eating a cookie?"

"You'll notice I'm not offering to share?" Karen finished one cookie and pulled another out of her pocket.

"Oh, I noticed," Anj grumbled. "You won't share your cookies? Fine. I won't share my emergency tea stash." She pulled a wallet stuffed with teabags from her pocket and waved it at Karen. "Now hopefully we can get out of this place before I have to use Ms. Tong to make my tea." She frowned at the annoying teapot in her other hand. "I have no idea why she didn't turn back into a student when we went through the plothole. Maybe it's for the best, though. I'd hate to be stuck in a plothole with a student for company." She look around. "Granted, I hate being stuck in a plothole anyway."

"Don't freak out, Anj; we're just stuck in a plothole. It's really not that bad—or, wait, is this your first time? Cuz I can understand you being freaked out if it is."

Anjilly stared at Karen for a moment before smiling sweetly. "Karen. I've been an agent of the Protectors of the Plot Continuum for years. I am very used to falling, jumping, or getting pushed into plotholes."

"Oh, good!" said Karen. "You shouldn't be too freaked out, then!"

"Just because I'm used to it doesn't mean I like it! Valar, this is worse than the time I was stuck in a plothole with Elrond's Other Daughter with nothing but a spork to defend myself with—"

"Actually, Anj," said Karen, interrupting before the PPC agent could start rambling, "I've been meaning to talk to you about something. Suki's been giving me threatening looks every time I go near her, and I think Sokka's starting to feel the stress of having a Kyoshi Warrior and the Moon Spirit fighting over him. Make it go away."

"You're the one who insisted we bring Yue here 'for teh drama,' remember?" Anjilly growled. "Shouldn't you have anticipated this?"

"Um, has nobody else noticed that weasel-thing in the corner, staring at Anjilly's tea stuff?" Marshall asked suddenly. The two Agents ignored him. "Nobody?"

"The only thing I need to anticipate is when a cookie will next be in my hand," Karen smiled dreamily at the word "cookie."

"Oh, Valar," Anjilly grumbled. "You know, you _could_ try to anticipate at least a _little_more than that. I mean, planning ahead is important. Especially if you want to become an official PPC agent. Planning ahead could make all the difference in a life-or-death situation!"

"Seriously," said Marshall, "that's a freaky looking weasel-thing. And Anjilly, I think it's stalking you _with its eyes_. Creepy."

"I _do _plan ahead!" Karen insisted. "Do you have any idea how much planning it takes to make all the cookie dough I need daily?"

"Mmph," said Anjilly.

"Marshall," said Karen, abruptly changing the subject, "whatcha drawin'?"

"Nothing important," Marshall Arts blushed and tried to roll up the paper before she could peek. Karen, being Karen, immediately threw a sugar cookie shuriken and pinned Marshall's arm to a wall labeled "6." The picture in his hand unrolled, revealing a very accurate rendition of one Lupe Gabriella Hernandez.

"Aha!" Karen gloated. "You _are _the Designated Love Interest of the story!"

There was a moment of silence. It was broken by a sudden, ominous _CRACK_. And then another. And then a series of smaller noises - crack, snapple, pop, bad cereal joke - until, finally, the entire wall behind Karen collapsed, shattering into a million, pulverized little pieces.

Anjilly whirled to gape at it, a look of abject horror on her face. "Karen - !"

"Oh, don't worry," said Karen, toeing some of the wall sand.

"Don't worry?" Anjilly repeated. "You just _broke the fourth wall_!"

"Sure it wasn't the fifth one?"

"Yes!" Anjilly shouted, turning to look at the octagonal room. "See, they're numbered. There's one, two, three—and a _kriffin' gaping void where number four should be_!"

"Oh, please, it's nothing to get upset about," said Karen. "We've been building up to it all chapter long!"

There was another _CRACK _from down the hallway, and the unmistakable sound of rubble hitting the floor.

"KAREN!"

"Hey, it isn't the end of the world..."

"At least think about the building's structural integrity!"

"Chillax, Anj," Karen said, pulling out a cookie and idly nibbling on it. "I specifically designed this place so that even if every fourth wall fell over, there'd still be plenty of support from the other walls."

"You expected us to lose twenty-five percent of our walls?"

"...Well, it _is _an OFU fic."

_CRACK._

"KAREN!"

"On the plus side," said Marshall Arts, heading for the gap where the fourth wall had been, "we now have a way out of here."

"True, but—" And it was at that moment that disaster struck. The small weasel-like thing, which had previously been hiding in a corner, being ignored, launched itself at Anjilly and managed to wrestle away both the teapot she was holding and the wallet full of teabags. With a scarily Karen-esque laugh, the weasel dashed out of the hole in the wall and into OFUA:TLA proper.

"MY TEA!" Anjilly screamed.

"Come to think of it, that teapot was rather annoying…" Karen muttered to herself, then paused. "Oh. Wait. Anj, wasn't that Mai4?"

"My…my tea…" Anjilly blinked in shock, looking down at her hands. "It…it took my tea…"

"_And _a student," Karen added. "Don't forget the student."

"Should we send out a rescue mission or something?" Marshall asked.

"Pfft!" said Karen. "No, of course not. If I was going to rescue the students every time something bad happened to them, well...it wouldn't be as entertaining, would it? Just make a note that Mai4 was kidnapped by a creepy tea-stealing weasel thing so the teachers don't get confused when they take role."

"Tea…" Anjilly cried forlornly.

"She's not going to be functioning again until she gets some tea into her," Karen sighed. "Come on, Marshall, help me guide her out of here..."

"Tea…"

* * *

"Faster!" Anjilly snarled at a group of students. "Do you want the lemurs to catch you? Now conjugate 'bend' in first person singular!"

"I bend, I have bent, I bent, I had bent, I will bend, I will have bent," Lupe panted. The rest of her group groaned out similar answers. "I would bend, I would have bent…bending, bent…"

"I bended?" some poor unfortunate soul said.

"WRONG, Mr. [-]," snapped Anjilly. "While 'bended' is indeed a real world, it's used as an _adjective_, not a verb! Ten laps around the island! GO!"

"I don't think I've ever seen Ms. Ka so angry," Sofia remarked as poor [-] took off running. "Anyone know why she's acting this way?"

"I heard her tea got stolen," Freeranger shrugged. "Iroh's been trying to hide his stash. And several of the students think they've seen Swiper the Fox around campus."

"Wait, the thing from Dora the Explorer?" Ari Mason frowned. "I heard it was the weasel from Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide."

"Is someone gonna be a janitor and become its arch-nemesis?" Emma joked.

"You lot!" Anjilly stormed over. "Since you're just standing around talking, clearly you have time to do a hundred sit-ups while telling me the forms of 'drink'!"

The students groaned, and started the exercise. "Drink, drinking, drank, drunk…"

"I'm not sure if I should be scared or delighted," Karen eyed the students. "I approve of the torture you're inflicting with all my heart, naturally, but this does seem a little…_unusual _for you, Anj. You're normally a much gentler person."

"I don't have my tea," Anjilly growled, "and until I get my tea back, the students will suffer." She pulled a small bottle out of her pocket, pulled a small white pill out of the bottle, and popped it in her mouth.

"Is that...?" Karen asked.

"Yes," said Anjilly. "I sent a message to my friends back at HQ, and they were happy to send me a few bottles. Alright, Miss ihaznoideawuttowrite. Use there/their/they're in a sentence!"

"Uh...um...There over their with they're dog?"

Anjilly stared at the student for a moment before popping another white pill into her mouth. "That," she said, "was abysmal. Ten laps! Go!"

ihaznoideawuttowrite took off running, pursued by lemurs.

"Wow," said Karen, "that _was_bad."

"The pathetic thing is, I've heard worse," Anjilly growled. "And why aren't you paranoid anymore?"

"It's Saturday now," Karen grinned. "Saturday the Thirteenth isn't a very scary day. Actually, did you know that Friday the Thirteenth of October is feared so because of a massacre of the Templar Knights ordered by the King of France on that same day, back in…oh, the 1300s?"

"I did not know that, and unless it will help make the students miserable, I don't really care," Anjilly wheeled around to face the yard full of exercising students. "All right you lot! Everyone give me a sentence using an adjective/preposition combination followed by a gerund!"

"A _what_?" came the general reply.

"And another fifty push-ups for each of you!" Anjilly added.

The students groaned. Anjilly without tea was a force to be feared indeed.


	14. Of Bleeprin and a Lack of Tea

**Oh look! I finally figure out how to upload this chapter! Okay, technically my beta gave me the idea...but at least Chapter 14 is out! It was supposed to be posted on Christmas Day, but due to technical errors with the site I've been unable to post it until now.**

**Student applications are still welcome.**

* * *

Lupe looked around at her fellow students, noting the bags under their eyes and the numerous bruises. She had been able to avoid that; her agreement to be Marshall Arts' student assistant had come with an exemption from random late-night training sessions. It was tempting to rub it in her fellow students' faces, but Lupe didn't want to be mobbed by angry fangirls (and fanboys, the often-forgotten lesser half of fandoms everywhere).

Meep and Lauphen had fallen asleep, Lauphen's head resting on Meep's shoulder and Meep's head resting on [-]'s shoulder. All around, other students were in similar states of exhaustion, either taking advantage of the short lull between Basic Canon and Creating Your Character to sleep or repeatedly pinching themselves. Several students were missing: Danish the Awesome and Christina Soh had come up with the idea that they could just eat Karen's cookie weaponry, while Izar Laun, Nathaniel Willowshaunt, and Theodore James White had attempted to prank Anjilly with a bucket of whitewash (obtained from Freeranger, who was sitting in the back and trying not to aggravate her bruises). The boys were currently hanging from the outer walls by their ankles, sweating in the steam that rose from the boiling lake beneath them. Danish and Christina had learned that Karen baked her cookie weaponry hard as diamonds, and were in the Healer's Wing getting their shattered teeth fixed and the broken bones healed (Karen did not take well to people thinking they could thwart her). Nobody could remember when they last saw Mai4, though a few people thought they'd seen her in Chapter 13.

"So how was your first day on the job?" Emma pressed Lupe for details.

"Yeah! What's it like, working for Marshall Arts? Did you see any canon characters? Did you see Zuzu?" Fyre Elaine squealed. "Ooh, Zuzuuuu…!"

"I didn't see any of the canon characters," Lupe admitted. "But Marshall and I prepared enough paper for him to sketch half of the students. There should be sign-up sheets in the cafeteria tomorrow. We finished early, so Marshall asked if he could get my yearbook picture done then. He kept saying he didn't like his drawings and doing new ones, even though I thought they were amazing."

"Did you get to keep the extras?" [-] inquired. "You could put them up in your room, add a little decoration. I'm getting tired of having bare walls."

"Yeah, it'd be nice if we could brighten up our dorms," Emma sighed. "I'm tired of metal everywhere."

"The courtyard has dirt," Jessica Carden pointed out. "And I think I saw a few blades of grass near one of the edges. Plus there's that forest the Foggy Swamp people made on one edge, though I swear things move in there."

"Things _do_move in there," Allie Doyle shivered. "Master Pakku took us in the woods to train a few nights ago…Carsten swears something grabbed her ankle and started dragging her into the shadows."

"Ooooh," Andy Roseanne giggled. "Kinky!"

"How's the Waterbending training going, by the way?" Jessica Carden asked. "The Firebenders are still practicing breathing, and feeling heat, and not burning leaves. Jeong Jeong says none of us are ready to start shooting fireballs around yet. Something about us not having any control. Which is stupid, because I totally have control!"

"Yeah, like you had control when Zuko walked by and you tried to glomp him," Fyre Elaine rolled her eyes.

"You tried to glomp him too," Emma reminded Fyre. "Lupe, weren't you there?"

"Maybe…" Lupe looked away guiltily. She surreptitiously checked her shoulder—the lemur paw-shaped bruises were still there, but rapidly fading.

"Hey, class is starting!" [-] poked Lupe and pointed to the stage. Sure enough, Karen and Anjilly were walking on. "Shush up…Meep, Lauphen, wake up!"

"Nngh…Royroy, kill…eh?" Meep stirred, and lifted her head off of [-]'s shoulder. "Wassgoinon?"

"Class is starting," Emma whispered.

"Now, students," Karen rapped a cookie against a wall. "The past five weeks have been dedicated to identifying and generalizing categories of Mary Sues and Gary Stus. Today, we will be moving on to the creation of original characters."

Students began to whisper to each other, excited. Creating original characters! Finally! They were gonna make the best, the prettiest, the most badass…

"Our exploration of this subject will take up the remaining ten weeks of the semester," Anjilly pulled out a clicker and pushed a button. A screen rolled down from the ceiling. At the back of the hall, several lemurs turned on a projector. Lupe glanced up to look at the dust motes dancing in the beam of light before focusing on the teachers.

"Question: what is the most important part of creating a character?" Karen gestured to the hall. "Tell me what you think."

"What they wear!" Ashee Bieber shouted. "Totally what they wear!"

"How much muscle they have!" Daniel Clemens yelled.

"How much #$ they have!" Andy Roseanne and Joe C. Smith chorused in unison. "Wait…what was that?"

"No, no, and dear Pele no," Karen shook her head. "As for 'that,' it was the censor. I insisted we have one here after all the innuendos you made during Chapter Eleven—and I finally got the Headmaster to sign off on it. Well, he gave me a pawprint, but it's the same thing. Err…anyways, Ms. Ka, if you would?"

"Thank you, Ms. DuLay, I will," Anjilly cleared her throat and stepped forward. "The most important part of creating your character…is what kind of person they are."

Lupe blinked. What did _that_mean, the kind of person they were?

"You need to have a concept for a character, and preferably for the story they take part in, before you can begin to really make a character," Anjilly continued. "Depending on the story, your characters must be different to fit the plot and setting."

"The concept usually starts as a vague impression of what the character is like," Karen took over. "Gender, age range, personality traits…before you start in on appearance, you need to know this information."

"In the Avatarverse, you also need to know their nationality and if they can Bend," Anjilly added. "Certain traits are associated with different nations, either by virtue of the element the nation is named for or the common lifestyle of people in that nation. It's unlikely for a Southern Water Tribe male to be as formally educated as a noble in Ba Sing Se or the Fire Nation, for example. Benders will require training to master their element, and the amount of training they have had directly affects their fighting abilities."

"For the rest of the semester, we will use this class to explore the points of creating characters," Karen looked at her partner, who changed the presentation to a slide that read "gender," "age," "nation," "Bender?," and "personality." "It's fairly obvious what your choices are for gender…unless you're introducing an alien species, in which case your story will have a lot of original constructs and worldbuilding, which will not be covered in this course." She thought for a moment before adding, "And gender is a social concept anyway, and is completely different from a person's biological sex and sexual orientation, so it _can_get pretty complicated. But in general, people tend to make their characters either male or female, and leave it at that." She shrugged.

"Age is a bit more broad of a topic," Anjilly continued. "You can have young characters, or you can have old characters. While choosing the age of a character, you need to keep in mind the skill set and personality you wish to give the character, as the age of a person helps determine these factors. Another important factor to keep in mind is that people really do look their age—or at least, their age range. Physical features show age clearly, and it's unlikely to find someone you could mistake for being much older or younger than they really are unless they've had plastic surgery or starved themselves while going through puberty to prevent development."

"If you're having trouble with figuring out how a person looks at a certain age, take a look at your family and friends," Karen butted in. "Say you want to make a character that's sixteen…take a long look at your sixteen-year-old cousin of the same gender as your character when you see him or her next, and incorporate general details from them into the character. And, this is a big pet peeve of mine, do _not_give your character certain…eh…'attributes' that would not be possible for someone of their age without plastic surgery. Seriously, it can get ridiculous."

"Thank you for that, Karen," Anjilly rolled her eyes. "Moving on, the nation and Bending capabilities of your character also need to be thought of. Their nationality will influence their personality, as will the question of them being a Bender or not, because their nation will determine the culture and situation they were raised in. You can be sure that a Fire Nation citizen has different views and morals than a peasant or even noble from the Earth Kingdom."

"Their power, prestige, and property will be radically different as well," Karen chimed in. She paused. "But that's a discussion for later. Suffice to say, the nation a character is from will play a major role in determining their personality, beliefs, background, and lifestyle."

"Personality is the hardest of the basic five traits to be defined, because of the sheer range of possibilities." Anjilly changed the slides so that the screen was blank. "But you need to think long and hard about it, because it's also one of the most important parts of your character."

"Not to mention it influences all other aspects of your character, beyond the basic five," Karen walked to the edge of the stage. Her hands went into her pockets, and she leaned towards the students. Everyone in the front row leaned as far back as they dared. "Personality is a fluid thing—it changes as you go through your life, and is dependent on the situations you find yourself in, the parts of yourself you are stuck with, like your gender and age, and your basic brain chemistry."

"The last one is debatable, Karen," Anjilly objected. "The current scientific view is typically 'nurture over nature.'"

"Yes, but there is undeniably something that determines a person's most basic nature," Karen argued. "It…you know what, we'll continue this after class. For now, our dear students need only know that personality is dependent on family…whether it's biology or nurturing, however, is still being debated by the scientific community."

"Thank you," Anjilly nodded.

"So…personality!" Karen grinned. "What does our audience think of how a person's nationality might influence their personality?"

The students whispered amongst themselves for a few minutes, debating what they knew about the show from watching the episodes and how that could apply to personality. A few people had to have "personality" defined for them. Soon, hands began to rise. Karen pointed to one and nodded.

"Um…well, Zuko mentions in the show that the Earth Kingdom is proud and strong, so maybe if your character's from the Earth Kingdom they would be really proud and strong?" Owlson Pierce ventured.

"You used the singular 'they,'" Karen noted. "And yes, that is a valid point. Kudos to you. All right, who else has a thought? Ms. ihaznoideawuttowrite? What do you think?"

"Air Nomads are supposed to be monks and stuff, right?" ihaznoideawuttowrite hazarded. "So…an Air Nomad would probably be really religious, and spiritual, and maybe a vegetarian?"

"Indeed," Karen beamed. "Now let's hear from another Fire Nation student…Daniel Clemens, what about you?"

"Me?" Daniel pointed to himself. Karen nodded. "Hm…well, the Fire Nation is inherently superior to the other nations, so I'd say that anybody from there would be inherently superior to everyone else in all that they do."

"What?" Ai Da shrieked. "You wish! The Earth Kingdom is way better than you guys any day of the week! Who managed to fight off the Fire Nation for a hundred years, despite huge technological disadvantages and practically no warning before the initial attack?"

"Yeah!" Amy Ochanian backed up her fellow student.

"No way!" William GP protested. "The Fire Nation isn't all bad! We just had a few bad leaders!"

"We were misguided!" Somariel wailed. "Horribly, horribly misguided by our evil leaders! But Zuzu's not gonna mislead us!" The Fire Nation student brightened as she spoke the last sentence.

"Don't be foolish. It takes terrible people to do all the things the Fire Nation did," Cyrus Windfall scowled. "And the Earth Kingdom bore the brunt of it. It's just a good thing we won in the end."

"You didn't win, though," Fyre Elaine pointed out. "Zuko declared the war over. Technically the Fire Nation won, but then gave the Earth Kingdom back to its people."

"I'm with them on the 'Fire Nation is terrible' thing, though," Shiri added. "It takes some sort of predisposition for the horrors of the war to be possible. And remember Yon Rha? You need to be really messed up to do what he's done. Or, as Katara puts it, you need to have nothing inside—no humanity, no soul, nothing."

"The world is full of horrible people," Zuna asserted. "All we can do is suffer until we die."

"Still," Amy Ochanian frowned. "The Fire Nation is terrible."

"Yeah! Water Tribe's where it's _at_!" Nathan Hofstad jumped out of his seat, grinning hugely. "What do you guys say? Come on, let's hear it for the Water Tribe!"

"Yeah!" Moon Dragon and Vera Moretti cheered, the latter's voice muffled by her Guy Fawkes mask.

"What say we start a cheer for the Foggy Swamp Tribe, brony?" señor dangao pickle suggested to Sunan.

"We~ll," Sunan looked upwards thoughtfully, "there's really no way to determine which nation is best, because each of them has their own strengths and failings. I suppose you could try to create a points system…"

señor dangao pickle raised his eyebrows in disbelief. "Y'know what, brony? Forget I even suggested it."

"All right, but if you really wanted to—"

"Wow," Karen blinked as the students dissolved into bickering about which nation was best. "Looks like they're getting some nationalistic pride. Which is…scary. I really hope they don't restart the War amongst themselves. Or try to conquer each other."

"I really hope you'll get them all to be quiet, so we can finish the lesson," Anjilly rolled her eyes.

"Shall I do that, then?" Karen pulled her hands from her pockets, producing a megaphone (made of cookies—what did you expect? It's Karen!). She raised it to her mouth and winked at her partner, took a deep breath, and yelled, "OI, STUDENTS! SEDET ET TACE!" The vic—students all stopped talking to stare at Karen in confusion.

"Um…what?" Daniel Hallowell asked.

"In English, that would be 'sit down and shut up,'" Karen explained. "Well, technically 'sit down and be quiet,' but 'shut up' conveys my meaning a bit better."

"Why not just say it in English? Not everyone understands Latin!" Sofia Jayne Owens called.

"Because Latin sounds cooler!" Karen laughed. Elise. No last name. slapped her forehead in a very realistic version of a facepalm.

"How is she a teacher?" Midori B.M. grumbled.

"She's not a teacher, she's a maniac telling us things," Nicole Jackson rolled her eyes. "I don't think she'd do very well as a teacher. A bit too bloodthirsty."

"I _am _too bloodthirsty to be a teacher!" Karen beamed at the Earth Kingdom students blatantly whispering about her in voices loud enough to be heard by everyone. "Thank you for noticing! Here, have some cookies…whoops, did I hit you in the stomachs? Oh my, clearly that was an accident…like me hand-signaling the lemurs to get the cookies back! Good work, Sake. Watch the bottle—ow!" Rubbing her temple, where a drunken Sokka-lemur had just clonked her with a bottle of Japanese alcohol, Karen turned to look at Anjilly. "All right, it's your turn to do stuff. I'm gonna go stand off to one side and hope aspirin is enough to stop my head from hurting."

"Bleeprin would be better," Anjilly reached into her sash and pulled out a small container of what looked like white tic-tacs. "I'm trying to distance myself from it, so I've got plenty of extra. It'll dull the pain…and your memories of the past ten to thirty minutes, but then, it's usually used by PPC Agents in badfics for just that reason."

"I dunno if I wanna lose my memories, it doesn't hurt that ba—yeowch! Seriously, Sake? Just as I'm about to say no to the drugs?" Karen twisted her head around to glare at the Misspelling Lemur. "Anj, gimme the bleeprin."

"Here," Anjilly handed her partner the container and turned to the students. "All right everyone, we—"

"Did you just give her _drugs_? In front of a room full of witnesses?" Ashee Bieber cried in horror. Karen walked over to the side of the stage and sat down, throwing her head back and emptying the bleeprin container into her mouth. A dazed expression settled over her face.

"Well…legal drugs, yes," Anjilly shrugged. "I wouldn't give her something I could be arrested for possessing. Trust me, bleeprin is fully approved by the Protectors of the Plot Continuum…probably because most of their agents are addicted to it."

"What _is _bleeprin?" Rikki Brook shouted.

"Bleeprin is a combination of bleach and aspirin," Anjilly said. "It's literal brain bleach. Helps dull the headaches that come with dealing with badfic, as well as any horrid mental images and memories that come with it. But we really should finish the lesson. We were discussing personality traits amongst the nations. Now, the few of you who managed to put in opinions had valid points, but there are also—"

"You can't combine bleach and aspirin!" Sofia Owens called. "Scientifically speaking, it's impossible for it to work! And how would it dull memories as well as pain? Wouldn't the bleach make you throw up?"

"No, don't bring logic into—!" Anjilly tried to quiet Sofia, but too late. Karen's dazed look faltered, and she threw herself to the edge of the stage in time to empty her stomach over it. Isabella Rose and Scarlet Johnson, the only students who ever sat in the front row anymore (because Isabella insisted it was her "right" to do so, as the Avatar, and that since Scarlet was her best friend she could join her) threw themselves to the side and barely avoided the mess.

"Thanks…a…lot…!" Karen glared at Sofia through heaves.

"Pointing out the illogic will just keep the bleeprin from working," Anjilly growled, "and adding the fact that bleach will make you throw up only makes sure you do."

"I…will…torture…gehack!" Karen doubled over as she started to dry-heave.

"Umm…anything else we should know?" Sofia eyed Karen apprehensively.

"Bleeprin doesn't mix well with alcohol." Anjilly paused and thought for a second. "Well, if Karen were in any state to talk, she'd tell you that it does mix well, it just tends to explode after mixing. But that's not the point here. We were _talking _about personality in your original characters—!"

"ANJILLY! KAREN!" Iroh burst through the doors of the Spirit Hall, looking haggard. His hair was a mess, and he was still in his pajamas. Those close enough could see that his eyes were wide and bloodshot. Owlson Pierce realized she was within touching distance of her Lust Object, and promptly fainted.

"Iroh?" Anjilly blinked in surprise. "What is it? Something wrong?"

"It…it's terrible…" Iroh sobbed. "So terrible…I can't believe…"

"What is it, Iroh?" Anjilly stepped forward, alarmed. "Is it a plothole? Has someone been injured? Did Azula snap…snap more than before, and attack someone?"

"Worse," Iroh began to cry. "S-so much worse…" Lupe felt her eyes widen. Iroh had only cried in the series when someone was dead, or he was forgiving Zuko. What could have happened to make him cry?

"Then what?" Anjilly pressed.

"It's gone…all gone…" Iroh sniffed and wiped at one eye.

"What's gone?" Ari Mason called anxiously. Other students were whispering to themselves, wondering what could have happened. Several younger students started to cry in fear.

"The…the tea! It's all gone!" Iroh wailed, bursting into fresh tears.

Lupe blinked. That…was it? Just tea?

"NOOOO! NOT THE TEA!" Anjilly screamed in horror. She fell to her hands and knees, staring wide-eyed at the floor in shock. All of the students—excepting those who knew the bliss of tea for themselves, and were wise enough not to comment—stared at the Course Coordinator and canon character in confusion.

"Um…it's just tea, you guys…" Ishi Bananas spoke up.

"BLASPHEMER!" Anjilly cried, pointing a finger at the Earth Kingdom student. He shrank down in his seat.

Karen had finished expelling the bleeprin (and everything else) from her stomach, and managed to stand by bracing herself against the wall. "Th-the tea's…gone?" She gasped. "Do you know how? Was it a plothole?"

"No, no, I saw the last of it being carried off," Iroh choked on his words, and had to pause a moment before he could continue. "It…it was…a small, furry thing, like a ferret-weasel…"

"A ferret-weasel stole your tea?" Karen raised an eyebrow skeptically. "Are you sure? I don't think they can brew tea…or even digest it."

"I know what I saw! It was a ferret-weasel!" Iroh insisted.

Anjilly gasped. "Like the weasel that stole Mai4!"

"I _told _you I saw Swiper the Fox!" Fyre Elaine hissed to Freeranger.

"Karen…bleeprin…please!" Anjilly begged. She held her hands out towards her partner in supplication.

"Um…I ate it all. Then threw it all up when Ms. Owens brought logic into the equation. I'm still not happy about that," Karen gave Sofia the evil eye.

"But...it's _bleach_," Sofia said. "And _aspirin_. It makes no sense!"

Anjilly glared at Sofia. "Congratulations, Miss Logic, you just did away with the one thing that was getting me through my tea withdrawal."

The students exchanged horrified glances. On the one hand, the fact that Sofia had managed to score against Anjilly and Karen was pretty amazing. On the other hand, the memories of tealess!Anjilly dishing out punishment at GrammarBootCamp were still fresh in their minds.

"Anj," Karen said, attempting to sound placating, "weren't you trying to quit your bleeprin addiction, anyway?"

"Only while I had tea to make it bearable!" Anjilly wailed. "And then that stupid weasel stole my tea, so I went back on bleeprin...and Iroh was going to share his tea with me, but now it's _GONE_! Gone, Karen! MY PRECIOUS IS GONE!" She started sobbing hysterically.

"Oh," Karen paused. "_Oh_. I get it. Okay. Um, students, class is over, a situation has come up that requires my immediate attention. The rest of your classes will be continuing as scheduled. Until then, have fun."

The students milled about noisily for half a minute before a few brave souls stood up and walked around Iroh towards the door. Iroh's Misspelling Lemurs Orain, Iron, Irh, Ihro, Ieoh, and Iro hissed threateningly from their perches over the door whenever anyone got too close to their namesake. Owlson Pierce had to be carried out by Jessica Carden and Shiri. Wei Tzu and "Daeth" Santos, who had decided early on in the semester that they were the "bad boys" of the school, swaggered close by the crying canon character to prove how badass and unafraid of the lemurs they were. Orain and Iro dive-bombed them until they accepted the five-foot boundary and stayed out of range.

"Hey, Sunan, wait up!" Lupe heard one of the Earth Kingdom students—Zerkz, she thought—calling to the Foggy Swamp Tribe student. "We've gotta discuss the schedule for the next Suki Fans meeting!"

"So…" Lupe looked at [-], Meep, and Lauphen, "what just happened?"

* * *

Lunchtime at OFUA:TLA was always a noisy affair. Students whined and complained about the food, their pets tried to steal from their plates, and most people left the cafeteria still hungry. A few students had eaten Asian food before, and were as yet unsuccessful in convincing their friends to eat it. Several of the pets, such as Vera Moretti's capybara Pete and Mai4's panda Baobao, had perfected the art of looking adorable and starving. Shiri's saber-toothed mooselion Tashi preferred the more direct route of growling threateningly and eyeing the food platters.

Freeranger, aka Lana Kirk, had a harder time than her fellows keeping pets away from her food. She was thoroughly regretting having said in her application that she "walked alone," as it meant she had no nation and thus sat on the floor during mealtimes. Scarlet Johnson's "putty tat" (a rather creepy blob of silly putty that rolled around on the floor and made mewling noises) Axle Child was attempting to steal Freeranger's rice. Holding the plate out of its reach didn't help much, as Ashee Bieber's horse Destiny just took that as an invitation to eat the food itself.

She was getting just a little bit fed up with this place. Sticking her in a room that smelled like turnips, with a plothole in one corner that spewed random stuff out and glowed colors that hurt her eyes…what gave these people the right?

Okay, maybe she'd signed away her rights when she filled out the application form. But the Kyoshi Warriors were holding their katanas to her neck! She'd been under duress! Shouldn't that make the paperwork null and void? But noooo, because the whole freakin' universe here didn't like one little story she'd written, about a show she'd only seen one episode of…

A squirrel decided to use Axle Child as a launching pad, and flung itself at Freeranger's face. "Mr. Mister, no! Don't attack people!" Ishi Bananas shouted, getting up from the Earth Kingdom table and nudging aside several people's cats so he could go over. "Bad crocheting squirrel…go knit something!"

Oh yeah. Freeranger definitely hated it here.

* * *

"All right, everyone," Aunt Wu clapped her hands together and beamed at the Fire Nation and Air Nomad students. "Today we will have a quick review and a demonstration of three fortune-telling methods of Asian culture. Now who can tell me three methods of fortune telling from the Real World's China?"

The students started whispering to each other, and eventually hands started going up. Aunt Wu pointed at Karana Solara and nodded for her to answer.

"There's face reading, palm reading, and 'bazi'?" Karana ventured.

"Yes, yes, very good!" Aunt Wu clapped her hands together in delight. "Now, who can tell me what common elements are often found in fortune telling? Anyone? Ms. Owens, your hand is raised: I presume you have an answer for me?"

"Actually, I'd like to say that fortune is bogus," Sofia asserted. "It's based on unscientific methods that have no basis in reality. You think a person's hand or face can tell you what's going to happen to them?"

"I sense _someone's _not a believer," Aunt Wu tsked.

"She's been protesting this class since the first day, on the basis that spirits can't possibly exist," Yue whispered to the old fortuneteller.

"I think I know who the volunteer for the first demonstration is," Aunt Wu's smile widened, displaying more of her teeth. Her eyes narrowed, fixing on Sofia. "Ms. Owens, why don't you come up here and let me do a reading on you?"

"Actually, I'd rather no—gah!" Sofia yelped as Aange, Yang, Geatso, and Gyatsu latched onto her shoulders and flew her over to the stage. "Wait…wait a minute! They fly primarily by gliding! That was _not _possible! Four lemurs cannot carry a teenager!"

"Our world has flying pigs," Yue reminded the Air Nomad student. "Why do you expect logic?"

"Because…oh, never mind. Let's get this over with," Sofia grumbled. "Do your worst, ma'am."

"Very well, my dear," Aunt Wu beckoned her over. "Since this is the first demonstration, I'll use palm reading. Show me your hands."

Sofia complied, but muttered, "Shouldn't you just do one hand?" The hall's acoustics picked up the words immediately, letting everyone know.

"Yes, but I'd like to be as accurate as possible," Aunt Wu replied absently. She placed her left hand under Sofia's right and moved it into the light, then leaned down and squinted at it while tracing the lines with her right index finger. "Yes, yes…yes, I had thought as much…other hand?"

"Shouldn't I be asking you a specific question for this?" Sofia complained as her left hand received a close inspection.

"Only if there's something you really want to know," Aunt Wu's brow creased as she examined Sofia's left hand. "My word, I've never seen someone with such an imbalance of wood and metal! You have no time for anything that is not scientific, or cannot be measured and analyzed. This will result in you leading a lonely life, unless you begin to open your heart to others more."

"Excuse me?" Sofia snatched her hand away. "I've had enough of this! Good-_bye_!" She stormed to the edge of the stage, then paused. "Um…how do I get back to my seat?" As a measure of protection against fangirls, none of the stages in any of the halls connected to the seating areas. The only way onto the stages was through the Staff hallways, which students were not allowed to use. In the space between the first row of seating and the edge of the stage, Karen had asked Huu to grow a thick hedge of thorny bushes and poison ivy. Sofia had no intention of trying to force her way through that.

Fortunately for Sofia, the Misspelling Lemurs had no intention of that happening either. Thirty seconds later, the Air Nomad student was deposited in her seat from a height of seven feet. The other students sitting around her winced in sympathy.

"Well, let's get back to what we were talking about," Aunt Wu suggested. "I had just asked what common elements are found in fortunetelling. Who has my answer?"

William GP raised his hand tentatively. Wu called on him. "Astronomy comes up a lot?" He smiled nervously.

"Indeed it does!" Aunt Wu beamed. "Anything else?"

"Balance? The elements?" Rikki Michaela Brook called.

"Yes, very good!" Aunt Wu clapped her hands together in delight. "Consulting the stars and the balance of the elements are both important parts of some fortunetelling methods. These methods tend to take a while, however, so I won't be demonstrating them in class." Several students "awwww-ed" in disappointment. "But I will demonstrate a method of fortune-telling from Real World China known as 'Kau Cim,' and a method of fortunetelling from the series."

"The thing where you throw a bone in a fire and read the cracks?" Chloe Cooksey asked eagerly.

"That's the one," Aunt Wu nodded.

"YES! THAT IS SO GONNA BE ME!" Chloe bragged.

"Should we mention that now there's no chance she'll be picked at all?" Yue murmured to Hei Bai. He grunted. "No, then?"

"I'd like a volunteer from the audience for Kau Cim—ah, you there! The young man with the two women sleeping on your shoulders!" Aunt Wu pointed to [-]. He jerked in surprise at being picked out, waking Lauphen and Meep from their sleep.

"M-me?" [-] squeaked.

"Yes, you," Aunt Wu nodded. "Why don't you have your fortune told?"

"My fortune? Um, no, I don't think I—gyah!" [-] yelped as Zukko, Befong, and Mae grabbed him. Despite his fervent protests, the Fire Nation student was dumped unceremoniously on the stage in front of Aunt Wu. The old fortuneteller produced a tall cup of sticks from behind her back, and rattled it.

"Take this," she instructed. [-] started to get up, but Wu placed a hand on his shoulder and shook her head. "Stay kneeling, my boy. Now, think of a question and repeat it over and over in your mind. Hold the cup—yes, perfect. Are you thinking of your question?" [-] bobbed his slightly in a "yes." "Very good. Now, tip the cup slightly downwards and shake it."

[-] turned the mouth of the cup a few degrees down from horizontal, and started to move it back and forth. Three sticks fell out, and he looked up at Aunt Wu expectantly.

"If more than one stick falls out, you have to do it again," Wu explained. [-] shrugged, picked up the sticks, and placed them in the cup again. "Hm…it helps if you pray to a deity for aid. Are there any deities you care to pray to?"

"Um…I guess…" [-] closed his eyes. His brow furrowed as he thought hard. "Okay, I got my question and my prayer. Now what?"

"Now shake the cup again, just like you did before," Aunt Wu told him. [-] did so, and one stick fell out of the cup. "Excellent! Give it here!"

"What's my fortune?" [-] tried not to look to eager. Guys getting their fortune told wasn't a very common sight where he was from, nor was it considered entirely manly.

"First, you need to confirm the validity of your answer," Aunt Wu opened one hand to reveal two blocks of stone, each with one rounded side and one flat side. "Toss these on the ground. If there is a flat side and a round side facing up, the fortune is valid. Should you get two flats or two rounds, we'll try again. As a side note, if you get two flats it is considered to imply denial, and that the deity is laughing at you."

"I wouldn't be surprised," [-] muttered. He accepted the stones from Aunt Wu, and threw them on the floor. One landed with the flat side up: the other landed with the round side up. "Does that mean my fortune's good?"

"Indeed it does," Aunt Wu looked at the stick, and smiled. "Yue, could you give me the piece of paper marked 'seven'?"

"Yes, here it is," Yue pulled the paper out of a small envelope sitting on a table that held various fortunetelling implements. Aunt Wu accepted the paper, and smiled.

"Your fortune says this, boy," she spoke to [-]. "'Great happiness can be found when you follow your heart's desires.' A good fortune, to be sure."

"Wow…thanks," [-] grinned. He was still grinning when the Lemurs picked him up off the stage and dropped him in his seat, startling Royroy enough to make the electric rat give [-] a shock.

"One more fortunetelling—the bones," Aunt Wu crooked a finger towards someone offstage, and a Fire Nation guard wheeled in a low table with a brightly burning fire and a bowl of bones. "May I have a volunteer?"

"ME!" Chloe Cooksey screamed. "ME ME ME MEMEMEMEMEMEMEME!" Ari Mason and ihaznoideawuttowrite stuffed their fingers in their ears and grimaced at their fellow Air Nomad's high pitch. The door to the hall creaked open, and a female student in the Fire Nation student uniform crept in.

"How about…the young girl that just walked into the classroom, blatantly late?" Aunt Wu suggested innocently. "Do you have anything to say for yourself, young lady?"

"Uhhh…" Lupe's mind blanked. "I…was helping Marshall clean brushes after lunch…because he spilt ink all over them and thought it would go faster with two…and it took a while, because when we were done he asked if he could redo my yearbook picture again because the old one got ink on it too."

"I see," Aunt Wu raised an eyebrow.

"It's kind of hard not to," Andy Roseanne sat up in her chair and winked at Lupe.

"In any case, why don't you come up to the stage and have your fortune told?" Aunt Wu gestured to the fire and bones. "I was about to have a final demonstration."

"Nooooo! Meeeee!" Chloe Cooksey wailed. Suko dive-bombed her, effectively shutting her up as the lemur grabbed the sash tied around her waist and tied it around her mouth instead.

"Actually," Lupe inched towards the seats nervously, eyeing Chloe, "I'd really rather let someone else—"

"Oh, I insist," Aunt Wu smiled as Lupe was seized by five lemurs and brought to the stage. "Now, pick up a bone and put it in the fire."

"Er…you mean, like Aang did that one time when he saved your village from the volcano?" Lupe hesitated, but picked up a bone. Eww, it felt all dead and gross, like there were germs on it that were getting on her hands. She didn't like that episode with the bone-fire-fortunetelling thing…it was way too Kataang for her.

"Yes, just like then." Aunt Wu paused. "Only I don't think your bone will be exploding."

"Didn't Karen find those bones for you?" Yue recalled. "I…I think I'll just go stand over there…"

Lupe gulped as the Moon Spirit walked offstage, and glanced at the fire. She held the bone tentatively, and gave it a weak toss. It fell short of the fire, and the students started sniggering. Gritting her teeth, Lupe picked up the icky bone and gave it a more solid throw. This time it landed in the bowl of fire.

"Now, we observe the bone as it begins to crack," Aunt Wu walked over to the fire and looked inside. One eyebrow started to rise higher and higher, until it was nearly at her hairline. "My my…put the fire out for me, would you, Lee?"

"Yes ma'am," the random Fire Nation guard leaned down and blew. The fire went out, and Aunt Wu pushed her sleeve back so she could reach into the bowl and take out the bone.

"Very nice cracks indeed," Aunt Wu studied the burnt surface of the bone. "Ms. Hernandez, according to this bone, you will find great friendships and adventure at this institution…as well as pain. Much, much pain. In less than two weeks' time, you will have foolishly run into trouble and paid the price. And there is someone very close to you who is about to become very happy, and he will share that happiness with you."

"Um…does it say anything about…"

"No, you will not be able to make Zuko fall madly in love with you or Katara."

Lupe had never believed in fortunetelling anyways.

* * *

"Hello, Karen?" Sokka knocked on the door to the cookiephile's office, and stuck his head in. "I need to talk to you…about…" His jaw dropped. The door swung all the way open, and Sokka stepped a few feet inside to point at a very strange object in the center of Karen's room. "What is that?"

"Huh? That?" Karen looked up from the paperwork on her desk (which she was only doing because Anjilly without tea was a far scarier thing than Anjilly with tea, at least when Anjilly without tea wasn't crying about the tea being gone, and Anjilly without tea wanted Karen to do both of their paperwork so Anjilly could lock herself in a room and cry). "It's a suit of armor made of cookies. I baked it a couple nights ago, when I drank too much Dr. Pepper and couldn't sleep."

"You…you…you know what? I'm not going to be surprised by anything you do anymore." Sokka threw his hands up in defeat. "I came because Aang Took wanted to know if he should make the mooncakes for the Mid-Autumn Festival. Anjilly's too busy crying with Iroh about the tea disappearing to give a good answer."

"Huh? Yeah, sure, sure," Karen waved a hand. "I needed to get that taken care of anyways. One less thing to worry about, and all."

"Okay, thanks," Sokka nodded. He turned to go, but caught a glimpse of Karen's paperwork and stopped. "Hey…that's one of the supply transcripts, isn't it? What are you ordering?"

"Supplies for the Mid-Autumn Festival," Karen explained, painstakingly trying to write the Chinese version of her name with a bamboo brush. She wasn't doing very well, to say the least. "I suppose I should order more flour for the mooncakes, shouldn't I?"

"Yeah, maybe," Sokka walked over to the desk and started scanning the scroll Karen was signing. "Hold up…why do you need lanterns painted to look like cookies?"

"I thought it'd be fun, since my attempts at baking cookie lanterns didn't go over so well," Karen shrugged. "Hmm…what kind of fillings should I order for the moon cakes? Knowing Aang Took, he'll want to use mushrooms…something wrong?"

"Um…banners with cookie designs on them…enough ingredients to make thousands of cookies…" Sokka frowned as he read the document. "And you want to see if we can paint the moon to look like a giant cookie. Karen, I don't think Yue would go for that…"

"Why not? Cookies are a great theme for the Mid-Autumn Festival!" Karen grinned. "Plus, I read that in some parts of China they have these matchmaking things where girls throw ribbons at a crowd of boys, and the boy that catches a girl's ribbon has the best chance for a romance with her…I was thinking maybe we could try something similar, only with cookies instead of ribbons."

"Who agreed to let you plan this again?" Sokka looked sideways at Karen and raised an eyebrow.

"Nobody," Karen pulled a cookie from her pocket. "Anj didn't want me getting involved, but with her crying about the tea and everybody else being busy with lessons—"

"Long's Feng's not that busy," Sokka interrupted.

"—everybody that isn't plotting how to regain power or busy with lessons—"

"The Freedom Fighters are pretty happy just goofing off all day."

"—and nobody else with proper organizational skills—"

"Jet managed to keep a bunch of kids organized and attacking the Fire Nation for years. I think he must have some pretty good organizational skills." Sokka didn't _like _Jet very much, but he had to admit that the guy could definitely lead and organize a guerrilla fighting squad. And Jet wouldn't try to make the Mid-Autumn Festival cookie-themed. Destroy-The-Fire-Nation-themed, maybe, but at least it wouldn't involve painting the moon. Which, now that Sokka thought about it, might come across as sacreligious to the Water Tribes...

"Oh, for Agni's sake, Sokka!" Karen groaned. "Let me win here? Look, I really didn't want to bother any of the canon characters for this, and I want to do something to prove to Anj that I'm not just a cookie-obsessed psycho waiting out my year here before I get full Agent status and head to off to kill stuff with pastries." Karen paused, and added, "Of course, that's pretty much what I'm doing here. But still."

"I understand wanting to prove yourself to the older, more experienced Agent," Sokka sighed, "but maybe you should do a little more research before starting to change the Mid-Autumn Festival into the Cookie Festival."

"What's wrong with a Cookie Festival?" Karen blinked.

"Well…it's not that there's anything wrong with one…it's more that the Mid-Autumn Festival has its own qualities that need to be emphasized." Sokka tried to find the right words. "Err…look, how about you let me and Aang Took plan this out? The little guy's been wanting to be more useful for a while now. It's a great opportunity to let him."

"I'm not sure…dear flame, yes, please," Karen leaned her head against her hand and closed her eyes. "I thought I would have to stay up all night working on these…if you could do it…"

"We'll get it done," Sokka felt a smile tugging at his lips. "You can prove yourself some other time."

* * *

Books. Shelves upon shelves of books and scrolls and parchment and ancient tomes…Wan Shi Tong's library was a marvel. Professor Zei had started putting up labels of what the books in each section were about (history, theological, philosophical, etc.), making it all that much easier to find what one was looking for. Everything was in Chinese, of course, but the members of the Asian Lovers Research Society and the Calligraphy Club were working to translate the textbooks and important reference books.

Sofia Jayne Owens, scientist extraordinaire, was reading a translated version of the Peaceful Air Monks textbook and trying to ignore everyone around her. Classes were over for the day, and everyone was either out walking their pets or in the library trying to study. Newton, Sofia's mynah bird, was probably flying around the school with Izar Laun's falcon Ciro (pronounced like "Siro," as the Fire Nation student stressed to everyone), Elise's parakeet Kiwi, and Ari's kestrel Summer.

The words on the page before her stopped holding any meaning, and Sofia's mind drifted back to her fortune. A complete waste of time, naturally, but still…

She was not emotionally stifled! Sofia was positive she was not, and even if she was, well, she was a scientist. It was her nature to measure and examine and figure things out. All the crazy things at OFUA:TLA could be assigned reasonable explanations…

"Aren't my kitties adorable?" Fyre Elaine giggled somewhere behind Sofia.

"Um…they're trying to eat your fingers," Wei Tzu pointed out.

"Aw, they always do that. It's how they show affection!"

…All right, maybe there were a few things beyond modern science. But still.

And it wasn't like Sofia didn't have friends…Ari Mason was sitting across the table, reading a translation of the Spirit World 101 book. Granted, about all they did was sit around and read books, asking each other for opinions or help interpreting phrases from time to time. They were still friends, though. Yeah.

Weird, though…Sofia was feeling sorta…lonely.

* * *

"Well well, it looks like your horse stances are coming along well," Bumi snickered. "And you all look _so_much more awake than you were three hours ago when we started."

Zerkz would have begged to differ, but he was too exhausted to open his mouth. He just wanted to fall over and sleep. Why did he have to be a Bender? Why couldn't he have just said he wanted a katana and been done with it? After this, he would have to endure two hours of sword training with Piandao, and the Benders that hadn't chosen any weapons would get to go back to their rooms and sleep…

"I think it's time you all were allowed to move some rocks!" Bumi announced. Zerkz's exhaustion instantly evaporated in light of the possibility of doing some actual Earthbending. "On the side of the training field, you will see enough boulders for all of you. Pick one, and go stand by its west side."

"We're gonna move rocks with our minds!" Nicole Jackson squealed as the Earthbending students made their way to the side of the field. "This is so exciting! Azula's gonna be so impressed with me!"

"Or you'll fail miserably and we'll all laugh," Daeth Santos snickered.

"Don't be such a killjoy," Ai Da huffed. "I'm sure we'll all do fine for our first tries."

"Everyone in position?" Bumi craned his neck around to check. "Good! Assume your horse stance!" Zerkz and his fellow students immediately stomped their feet onto the ground and widened their feet, pulling their elbows in to their sides. Closing his eyes, Zerkz tried to listen to the earth—it was tricky, but everyone had gotten the hang of it by then. Cyrus said it was similar to how Toph described her "sight"—the Earthbending students' bare feet somehow relayed to them a sense of the earth itself.

Bumi observed the students, and couldn't help but feel a twinge of pride. Nearly six weeks—thirty-eight days, if you wanted to be specific—and the students could finally feel the earth. Granted, they were starting their training very late, and they tended to complain about the things that would let them learn how to Earthbend without hurting themselves, but they were in decent horse stances and they were breathing properly and they were ready to move those rocks.

"Keep your breathing steady…" Bumi instructed, "and…punch!"

Midori and Nicole Jackson punched the instant they heard a "p" sound from Bumi's lips. Their boulders skidded several yards, and fell over. Izzy Smiling's boulder didn't move at all, earning him some bruised knuckles. Ai Da and Daeth's boulders careened sideways and smashed into each other, throwing rock chips everywhere. Cyrus Windfall flinched back from the debris, and accidentally Bended his boulder into coming back at him and whacking him onto his back. Zerkz's boulder rolled over a couple of times, then just sat on the ground.

"Well, that was better than I expected from most of you," Bumi beamed at his students. "Mr. Windfall, you may go to the Healer's Wing and receive medical treatment. I'll expect you to meet me back here after the day's classes are done so you can make up the time you've missed. Everyone else, how do you feel about your first real time Earthbending?"

"It's harder than I expected it would be," Midori B.M. frowned. "The rock…really didn't wanna move."

"Yes, rock rarely wishes to change unless the change happens slowly," Bumi nodded. "Earth is a very patient element, willing to spend millennia waiting for a change to occur. As Earthbenders, one of the key things you must learn is patience. You must wait for the rock itself to be ready to move."

"Like how you surrendered and let the Fire Nation take over your home until the right time to strike back?" Izzy called.

"Exactly!" Bumi nodded. "I realized we were at a disadvantage, and would lose anyway, so I let the Fire Nation take the city without bloodshed. My people were able to escape later, and lived to fight another day. Had we attacked, or even defended ourselves, the loss of life would have been too great to justify."

"But what if you'd waited too long, and hadn't been able to recognize the right time to attack?" Ai Da asked.

"That's a good question, Ms. Da," Bumi stomped his foot, and a rock about as big as his head flew up out of the ground and landed in his waiting hand. "Another important aspect of Earthbending is the ability to listen—to be able to identify what time is right for attacking, or defending, or doing nothing. Hopefully you will all learn how to tell when the earth is telling you to do what before the school year ends."

"Um…sir?" Ishi Bananas raised his hand. "Is it just me, or is something…rumbling? Really close by?"

"Hm?" Bumi looked up and squinted. "Nope, not just you. Brace yourselves!" The King of Omashu quickly Earthbended a pillar of rock up under his feet, just as a huge wave of water swept over the Earthbender training field. Most of the Waterbender students were being carried along in the wave as well, desperately trying to keep from drowning. Several students crashed into Bumi's earth pillar.

The wave slowly subsided, the moisture sinking into the dirt. Waterbenders and Earthbenders alike moaned in pain.

"Oh, I'm sorry, did I do that?" Pakku rolled his eyes, voice dripping with sarcasm. "My apologies. You know how _difficult _it can be to splash a little water around properly, don't you?"

"Nice wave," Bumi complimented his fellow White Lotus member.

"Ohmigosh, it's _Bumi_! Hi Bumi!" Allie Doyle grinned like a madwoman and started waving frantically to her Lust Object. Had he not been twenty feet in the air on a pillar of smooth rock, she might have attempted a glomp.

"You know what would make this even better, though?" Bumi suggested, a twinkle in his eye.

"Do tell," Pakku smirked. "Or rather, show?"

"Gladly!" Bumi held out his hands and clenched his fists. The ground underneath the students turned into sand—heavily drenched sand. Another word for "heavily drenched sand" is "quicksand." Quicksand tends to suck people in, and the quicksand underneath the students immediately began to do so.

"Ahh! What is this?" Ashee Bieber screamed. She started thrashing around as if she were trying to swim, and only sank faster.

"Consider this a practical lesson in Earth- and Waterbending," Pakku smiled grimly. "First person to use their Bending to properly escape from the quicksand gets five points of extra credit.

"Hey Zerkz," Sunan greeted his Earthbender friend cheerfully as the combined classes began trying to Bend their way out of the quicksand. "How's your day going so far?"

"Peachy," Zerkz grumbled, failing to solidify the earth around him like Toph had done in "The Desert."

"That's great!"

"The sad thing is I know you didn't get the sarcasm and you're being sincere…"

* * *

The only drawback to Fire Nation Military was that Zuko did not teach it. Other than that, it was sort of neat. Lupe had a soft spot for Iroh, one of the teachers, and while she absolutely loathed Azulon, Ozai, and Zhao for being so mean to Zuko in the show, it turned out Sozin had a great sense of humor…despite having left his best friend to die so he could take over the world.

"All right," Azulon pointed to the first slide, "who can tell me what that is?"

"A suit of plate armor?" Somariel called.

"Indeed it is," Azulon nodded. "This, along with chainmail, is the stereotypical Western idea of armor. However, you can also have armor that is made of leather, wood, silk, paper…even turtleduck shells."

"In battle, you need to consider what kind of situations you're likely to run into before deciding on your armor choices," Sozin, who had the remote for the slide projector, changed slides to three screenshots from the series. "This first picture here is of a Fire Nation soldier with no Firebending capabilities. You will note he is carrying a spear—this is one of several weapons available, which we will cover a little later on in the class."

"You'll notice that his shoulder pads are different from the older version, which I had modified during my reign to be more practical," Azulon added, indicating the second screenshot. It was Hahn in the old Fire Nation uniform, looking smug. "The upturned shoulder spikes kept getting caught on things. Highly impractical."

"A point I would like to bring up is that the uniform has a split down the front, in the middle," Iroh added. "This would allow the soldier to ride more easily on a komodo rhino. It is an adaptation seen commonly in Real World Mongol designs, allowing the armor to protect the rider's legs. Firebender uniforms do not have this aspect, possibly because fighting from rhinoback would limit a Firebender's effectiveness."

"That takes us to the Firebender armor," Ozai held up a helmet. "As you will see in the final picture on the screen, Firebenders wear different helmets from ordinary soldiers. This is purportedly for psychological warfare. Just think of how a soldier in battle would feel, facing an opponent with a helmet that makes them look like some sort of demon while that opponent is shooting flames from his hands."

"The facemask is removable, allowing a Firebender to take it out while talking to someone," Zhao put in as Ozai demonstrated. "Because the facemask can make one's voice sound strange while they are wearing it, this can put one at a disadvantage."

"It can also be an advantage, if you don't want anyone to know who you are," Iroh pointed out. "Zuko kept his facemask on all the time he was hiding on Zhao's flagship, and nobody ever suspected he was not who he said he was."

"Now that we've looked at the armor designs, let's discuss what the armor is made of," Sozin changed slides again. "Traditional Chinese armor did not use metal plates that often—in fact, it hardly used metal at all. More common materials were leather, silk, chainmail, even paper and turtle shells." As he named each material, he clicked the remote and brought up a bullet point with its name. "Chainmail, I might add, was rarely linked together as Europeans would make it, but rather was sewn onto silk or some fabric that could be stiffened."

"Why didn't you use plate armor?" Theodore White called.

"Well, for starters, think about the battle conditions in a world where your opponents can move rocks with their minds, or create huge waves of water," Azulon told the student. "Metal is heavy and can slow you down, which is a bad thing if you're dodging boulders or swimming through ten feet of water. Leather and fabric is much easier to move in."

"But what about if someone's stabbing you with a sword?" Izar Laun asked.

"Leather can block a strike just as well as metal," Azulon explained. "Granted, you will want hardened and reinforced leather. But if you want extra protection, you can sew metal rings into the fabric of your uniform."

"It all comes back to maneuverability over strength," Ozai summed up. "You want to be able to avoid your opponent's attacks so that you can strike him before he strikes you. When battling a Bender, this is especially important, especially if you yourself are not a Bender."

"Metal buckles, snaps, clasps, or any such fastenings, are likely all the metal you will find on a Fire Nation uniform," Sozin finished. "We will now move on to practical armor—what we advise you to wear if you should ever find yourself in a battle."

"We want them to wear armor into battle?" Zhao frowned in bewilderment. "But…then they might survive."

"Don't mind him, he's just read too many slash fics with him and Zuko," Iroh reassured the students. "He won't actually try to murder you all in your sleep." Zhao's Death Glare™ did nothing to reinforce Iroh's words. Lupe cowered against her seat and thanked the Virgin that she hadn't written that Zuko/Zhao story she'd thought up last summer.

"Well, components of armor," Azulon nodded to his father. Sozin clicked the remote again, and the screen changed to a picture of a typical Fire Nation soldier. "You will note the non-Bender soldier has a conical helmet, similar to ancient Chinese designs. At the back and on the sides of the helmet are flaps of fabric or soft leather, which help to protect the neck and prevent the soldier from getting cold during night duties or cold weather. A small pointed piece sticks up from the top."

"If you got headbutted be somebody wearing one of those, it'd hurt," Daniel Clemens snickered. Theodore White and William GP, sitting on either side of him, snorted.

"The shape of the helmets is important," Ozai gestured to the helmet in the picture. "If someone tries to deliver a blow to the head, the rounded edge of the helmet will cause some of the force of the blow to be redirected. You can see similar designs in some parts of Real World Europe."

"Let's move on to the shoulder plate and body armor," Sozin suggested. "You will notice that the breastplate continues downwards, splits in the front near groin level, and continues down to the soldier's knees? This allows a soldier better protection on the sides if they should find themselves riding a komodo rhino into battle, and makes for an easier time while running. There is also a split in the back, which again contributes to ease of movement and protection while riding or running. The small piece that hangs down in front likely serves as protection for the front, particularly the groin."

"Um…can you stop saying groin? It's making me uncomfortable," Emma requested nervously.

"Yes, we'd just hate to make you uncomfortable," Zhao drawled sarcastically. "As uncomfortable as someone who gets kicked 'between the legs' and is incapacitated because she complained about how we word our lessons, rather than pay attention?"

"Zhao, it is important to make sure the students are comfortable," Iroh reminded him.

"Girls don't have anything between their legs!" William GP shouted. "Why would it hurt them?"

"It's still a sensitive area, no matter what gender you are," Ozai sighed. His relatives and Zhao all gave him sideways looks. "Am I the only one who paid attention to my female Firebending instructor? Really?"

"Oh, I paid _quite a bit_ of attention to _my _female Firebending instructors, little brother," Iroh smirked. Ozai glared at him. Azulon gave his firstborn a thumbs-up.

"Back to the armor," Sozin pointed at the screen. "The sleeves may be loose, or they may be tucked into the armguards on the lower arms. This seems to depend on where the soldier is located—loose sleeves are seen at Pouhai Stronghold, on the Water Tribe warriors who hijacked a Fire Nation ship, and in New Ozai."

"Omashu," Iroh corrected his grandfather.

"No, New Ozai," Ozai insisted. "My daughter officially renamed the city. We made new maps and everything."

"King Bumi took his city back on the day of the eclipse," Iroh reminded his younger brother. "He changed the name back as well."

"Then what are we supposed to do with all the revised maps?" Ozai threw his hands up in frustration. "It'd be a waste of money to just not use them!"

"That's up to Zuko," Iroh shrugged. "He is the new Fire Lord now."

"Yes, the new Fire Lord, ending my war," Sozin muttered. "Pathetic. Line went to seed after Lu Ten died. Iroh, you were a fantastic general, but after that Ba Sing Se debacle everything fell apart. And then you turned traitor. Really, Azulon here was the only one of my descendants who was worth his salt. He conquered huge portions of the Earth Kingdom _and _oversaw the extinction of the Southern Waterbenders. Well done."

"Thank you, Father."

"You're welcome, m'boy. I'm telling you, though, Zuko is just not suited for the throne," Sozin shook his head. "We could have won that war, if only Iroh had been crowned."

"Hey!" Ozai objected. "I stole the throne, fair and square!"

"By having your wife murder me," Azulon retorted. "Your own father!"

"The show was very unclear on that matter," Ozai folded his arms. "And besides, it was her idea."

"A terrible idea," Sozin asserted. "Look at what you did as Fire Lord!"

"Conquered Ba Sing Se and almost became the ruler of the entire world?"

"Your daughter conquered Ba Sing Se, not you," Azulon sniffed. "And I think your grandfather is more referring to the fact that you tried to burn Ba Sing Se—and quite a bit of the Earth Kingdom—to the ground when the Comet returned."

"It was a 'scorched earth' policy!" Ozai scowled. "I didn't have any reason to believe that the Earth Kingdom would settle down and accept Fire Nation rule, so I decided to get rid of the problem altogether!"

"What about all of the natural resources that you would have destroyed? Forests, crops?" Iroh pointed out. "Part of the reason for the War in the first place was to obtain those resources! Much of that would have been lost if the Avatar hadn't stopped you."

"Ash is fertile," Ozai defended his position, "and it wouldn't have been the entire Earth Kingdom, just a really troublesome part of it!"

"At least he wasn't trying to kill the moon," Azulon jibed. "I mean, come on, Admiral! Without the tides, docking ships would be that much harder, and the ocean ecosystem would fly out of whack! Microorganisms would die, then the plankton that eat those microorganisms, then the fish, then the panda-whales and other big sea creatures that eat fish…did you even think that one through?"

"I tried to warn him," Iroh sighed. "Me, with all my great military experience, telling a newly-promoted Admiral not to do something. You'd think he'd have listened. But no, he was much too proud to hear reason…"

"I was trying to make history! You don't make history by sitting around doing boring hobbies!" Zhao insisted. "Does anybody remember Sozin for his embroidery skills? No, they don't, and have you _seen_ his work? It's amazing!"

"I only told you it was _my_ work because I thought you would keep _quiet _about it," Sozin growled, his cheeks flushing red. "Telling my son and grandsons about it just ruins my image…"

"Not to mention the auditorium full of students listening to our every word," Ozai's eyes flickered towards the darkened student seating area. He could hear the distinctive sound of fangirls trying not to laugh. Thankfully, Sozin had gone slightly hard of hearing in his old age, and couldn't hear the students.

"So you wanted to be remembered, eh?" Azulon snorted. "How'd that go? What are you remembered as now? The man who couldn't even kill a fish?"

"The man who got his sideburns pulled by a flying lemur?" Sozin snickered.

"Ooh, good one," Azulon grinned.

Lupe settled back in her seat and smiled. When the Fire Lords started arguing, they'd be at it for a while.


	15. Of Parties and the Moon

**Wheeeeee...death. x.x Sorry it's taken so long to get this chapter out, there have been some serious delays thanks to me and Caelum's schedules.**

…**Okay, Caelum's busy schedule. I've been mostly lazing around and watching TV. Look, she even wrote a note about it for you:**

**Note from Caelum: Hiya readers! I'm terribly sorry that this chapter was so late. That's my fault. I have a very busy life. So I'm sorry. To make it up for you, this chapter is, like 43 pages long. Yay? Also, it bears mentioning that my high school did indeed have "required fun." Since Anjilly is kinda sorta me, she basically went to the same high school and had the same experiences, including required fun. Except Anjilly wound up falling through an administration-created plothole and became a PPC agent, while I just graduated and went on to become a vaguely-responsible adult who writes and betas fanfiction. I'm not sure which of us is the lucky one.**

**(Karen Again) So, as you can see, you should totally not hunt me down for this chapter being late. Yeah. I feel horrible that it's taken this long, but I can't change Caelum's schedule, and I refuse to make her give up on having a life just because I want something from her. So, we hope you enjoy the chapter, and please send in answers to the questionnaire at the end!**

* * *

Saturday morning. The first of two glorious days when students were allowed to sleep in—except when there was a seminar the next day, of course, but Lupe chose to ignore that. She had heard that the seminars would be every other week; since GrammarBootCamp was last week, this Saturday was going to be completely free. And she was going to start it by sleeping in 'til noon…

_BANG! BANG! BANG!_

"Gyah!" Lupe started, tangling herself in her red sheets and falling off her bed. She landed on her side, one arm twisted painfully underneath her.

"All students are to report to the courtyard outside in ten minutes," a guard shouted.

"What?" Lupe squawked, righting herself quickly. The left sleeve of her crimson sleeping robe had bunched up around her shoulder, and Lupe pulled it down while she stood. There was no answer to her question, and she glanced back at her nice, soft bed, wondering if she could just go back to sleep and forget about the strange noise…

_BANG!_

"He meant it! Get up!" a second voice yelled. Lupe winced at the noise, and turned to the chest her clothes were kept in.

She stumbled out of her room eight minutes later, jacket askew, hair unbrushed, and eyes half-shut in sleep. On her way towards the stairs, she bumped into Sofia, then Emma, and mumbled apologies while squinting and trying to clear her blurry vision. A thin stream of female students was pouring out of the woman's dorm building, and Lupe joined them silently. They shivered as they stepped into the pre-dawn chill—the sun's heat had dissipated over the night, dropping the temperature into the high seventies. After going through days averaging the high nineties and low hundreds, the students were beginning to regard anything below eighty as cold.

The boys were leaving their dorm building in a manner similar to the girls, and the lines combined to form a shuffling mass of students. Several people moaned in protest of being woken up so early in the morning on what was supposed to be a free Saturday.

The students slowly made their way into the courtyard, where the course co-ordinators watched their sluggish entrance. Had Karen not known better, she would have assumed there was a zombie attack underway and started throwing cookies like there was no tomorrow. Fortunately for the students, Anjilly was also present to make sure Karen did nothing too foolish.

Lupe raised her head groggily as she reached the open plaza by the classroom building. Though the rest of the courtyard was packed dirt, Anjilly had thought it would be nice to have a couple of paved areas for students to use for studying outside—thus, the Pai Sho Plaza and Cookie Plaza were born. The Pai Sho Plaza was situated between the girl and boy dorms, and the Cookie Plaza was in front of the school building. Iroh had been put in charge of designing the former (you can probably guess who made the latter), and was only given the conditions of "make it round and Four Nation-themed," and had thought his favorite game was a good fit. He and Gyatso had been seen whispering to each other in the hallways about "Human Pai Sho," a thought that filled the students with dread when they contemplated what that could entail. Granted, no one had any idea of how Pai Sho was actually _played_, but that just made it even more terrifying.

"Goooood morning, students!" Karen called as everyone found their way to the plaza. "I hope you're all feeling awake and perky?" Either in response or with perfect timing, Ai Da fell down, asleep. She didn't wake up when she hit the ground, and snored until Iro and Saki flew down and dragged her away.

"Why are we awake?" Moon Dragon mumbled, barely managing to make herself heard. "It's Saturday…" There was a general moan of agreement from the other students, who were not pleased at being woken up early.

"Don't you know what today is?" Karen widened her eyes in mock-surprise, and began toying with a cookie. "It's the Mid-Autumn Festival!"

"Wasn't that in September? It's October now!" Sofia complained. Karen frowned at her, but the Air Nomad student's eyes were nearly shut from drowsiness, preventing her from seeing anything.

Karen sighed. "Very well, I'll explain," she broke her cookie in half and started crumbling it into pieces, gathering a group of lemurs scavenging the crumbs at her feet. "In the Real World, yes, the Mid-Autumn Festival was in September. But we're not in the Real World, and thus, we're having the Mid-Autumn Festival late."

"The International Academy of Hetalia Fanfiction is having their Mid-Autumn Festival today, too," Anjilly spoke up. Her voice was gravelly and low, like she had a cold. "But for them, it _is_ September…we experienced a small time distortion in our continua's correlating timelines, which has…" She trailed off, realizing nobody was listening, or even caring. Indeed, her explanation seemed to be sending the students back to Dreamland. Lupe felt her eyelids start to droop farther down, and wondered if anyone would notice if she laid down and took a quick nap…

"In any case, we have to get the plaza set up for the festival tonight," Karen beamed at the students. "There's a lot of banners, a bunch of Western-style tables and chairs, decorations, food tables…just be thankful none of you are going to help out in the kitchen. Iroh, Kanna, Katara, and Song's mother have taken over, and they're running it like a workhouse, though Aang Took and the Airbenders are holding their own."

"Why do we have to be up before dawn? Can't this wait til, like, noon?" Noelle Collins protested, rubbing her eyes.

"There's too much to do for you to wait until noon to start, since the festival starts at five," Karen explained cheerily. "See, when I say you have to set up the tables, I mean you have to make them—we've got lumber waiting over there." She pointed to a pile of wooden planks off one side of the plaza. "Freshly imported from the Earth Kingdom! I hope you guys know how to make tables, because I don't. Some of the guards are related to carpenters, so maybe they can give you some advice? But it's all up to the students."

"What?" Izzy Smiling yelped. "How can we make tables from scratch in…um…"

"Twelve hours," Karen supplied.

"In twelve hours—wait, it's five in the morning?"

"No, it's four," Anjilly croaked. "The students have to go back to their dorm rooms at four in the afternoon to change. And don't go complaining about how early it is," she added before the students could groan, her tired voice taking on a hard edge. "Karen woke _me_ up at three so we could be ready for when the guards got the students up. And if _I_ can wake up at three AM without the help of tea" - her voice wavered slightly, but she soldiered on - "then you can live with a four AM wake-up call."

"I thought Karen wasn't very good with mornings?" Vera called.

"Yes, but this isn't morning for me. This is late night. I haven't gone to bed yet," Karen answered. "I'll be doing that in a few minutes, when the caffeine starts to wear off and I crash. Nice, soft pillows, warm sheets…mm…" A blissful smile spread over Karen's face as she taunted the students. "My sleeping mat is really soft, too."

"Stop teasing the students," Anjilly admonished her partner.

"Still!" Izzy Smiling said. "Twelve hours! You're only giving us twelve hours to make all those tables _from scratch_!"

Anjilly stared at her. "...Your point?"

Izzy faltered for a moment before shooting back, "Rome wasn't built in a day!"

"No," Anjilly agreed, "but the Amish can raise a barn in less than that. You just have to put some tables together and hang a bunch of party decorations." Izzy grumbled something, but Anjilly didn't hear him; she was too busy rubbing at her temples. After a moment she pulled out a bottle of Bleeprin, shook about four or five pills into her hand, and downed them without water. Her face instantly relaxed, and she sighed blissfully.

"I'll be taking Anj with me, since she's been taking the lack of tea hard," Karen added. Anjilly stared into the distance, smiling vacantly. "…_Really_ hard. So, we'll see you on your lunch break. Tools for making the tables are by the lumber, and not too far from that there should be poles and stands for the banners and other decorations. Try to make good progress. You'll notice there are torch stands set up all around the plaza—you'll want to move those to one side when it gets light out. After dawn or something Sokka and Aang Took will come out and give you actual directions. Umm, am I forgetting anything…?"

"Plans," Anjilly hummed.

"Ah, yes. This scroll—wait, where's the scroll?" Karen reached into her coat, found nothing, and started patting the leather everywhere. Her eyes widened in alarm as she failed to discover the scroll she was looking for.

"Do you think she'll let us go back to bed if she doesn't have that scroll?" Christina whispered to Danish and Ashee.

"It's Karen," Danish muttered. "More likely she'll make a new one out of cookies."

"Good one," Ashee giggled.

"I don't know if you can make scrolls out of cookies," Christina frowned. "What would you use as ink? Melted chocolate? Bake chocolate chips into letters?"

"Maybe she could carve the letters in?" Ashee suggested. "I think Chriss's got the right idea, though. Chocolate letters would be tasty!"

"Too bad all of Karen's cookies are baked too hard to eat," Christina shook her head. "I'd eat them if I cou—" The cookie shuriken whizzing past her ear stopped Christina mid-word, and she froze.

"While I may be unable to find the scroll," Karen warned, hand still extended from her throw, "I can always find something to throw at you." She lowered her arm, and pulled open one side of her coat to examine. "Though it _is_ very worrying that I can't find that scroll. Oh, and even if my cookies were soft enough not to break your teeth, you do realize I sharpen them to razor-edges, right?"

"Ponytail." Anjilly's eyes turned upwards, towards the still-starry sky. Lupe followed her gaze, and saw nothing particularly interesting.

"Oh yeah!" Karen grinned, and reached behind herself. She pulled a scroll out from behind her head, seemingly from thin air. "I kept losing pencils that way back in the Real World…anyways, this scroll! It should have the dimensions for the tables you're supposed to build." Karen tossed it forward, and Isaac Santos, Wei Tzu, and Nathan Hofstad all reached forward to grab it. They managed to knock heads, and as they clutched their skulls Allie Doyle reached forward and caught the scroll.

"This looks…interesting," Allie unrolled the scroll and wrinkled her brow at the contents. "Who _drew_ this, a three-year-old?"

"Sokka," Karen shrugged.

"Oh. Of course," Allie squinted, turning the scroll around. "I…can't tell if that's supposed to be a table or a bed."

"I don't think we're going to be making any beds," Rikki Brook craned her neck over Allie's shoulder. "What the…are those supposed to be…people?"

"What are they holding?" Allie looked up. "How are we supposed to figure out what to do with this?"

"Beats me." Karen half-turned. "Let's go, Anj."

"Mmm. Have fun, students," Anjilly waved as she went to follow Karen.

"Have fun? How?" Midori demanded. "You can't _make_ us have fun!"

That was apparently the wrong thing to say to Anjilly when she was on bleeprin. A stormy expression crossed her face, and she slowly turned back around to give the offending Earth Kingdom student an icy glare. "I'll have you know that in my pre-agent days, my high school gave me _plenty_ of experience with required fun," she informed the assembled students coldly. "I learned from the best. If I require you to have fun, then _you will have fun_."

* * *

"Those banners are looking pretty good," Sokka commented as he rolled up a scroll. Said banners, being hung by the combined efforts of Jessica Carden and Owlson Pierce, chose that moment to fall onto three male students hammering nails into a table a few yards away. Surprised, Izar dropped his hammer onto Nathaniel's foot, causing the latter to yelp and tangle himself in the banners further. Theodore White flailed in alarm, his own hammer coming dangerously close to Izar's elbow.

"Nice job invoking the Ironic Overpower," Aang Took sighed. He took a bite of his mushroom pie. "Hungry?"

"No thanks," Sokka shook his head. "I had some seal jerky before coming out." When Aang Took turned away, Sokka fake-gagged for a moment before pulling another scroll out of his satchel and inspecting the contents.

"Do we have everything China recommended?" Aang Took asked through a mouthful of mushrooms.

"Flowers, braziers, tables with food…yup, looks like," Sokka nodded. "Are the Air Nomads making enough mooncakes for later? I know Aang said they were used to lots of baking, but Karen's such a mooncake hogmonkey…"

"Don't worry, there aren't nearly as many people here as there would have been for a traditional Air Nomad Mid-Autumn Festival," Aang Took assured his friend. "I'm just happy China took the time to send us some advice—he must be busy with planning his own Mid-Autumn Festival at IAHF."

"Yeah, I hope it goes okay for him," Sokka agreed. "Too bad he wouldn't come help us out. It would've been nice to meet someone who knew Karen in her student days."

"But the Air Nomads remind him of Tibet, whoever that is," Aang Took swallowed the last of his mushroom pie, and pulled another from his pocket. "I don't understand why he wouldn't like this Tibet guy. Did they have a fight or something?"

"Karen says we shouldn't talk about it," Sokka shrugged. "When I asked Anjilly, she said our show had some subtle commentary on Real World events. But before she could explain, she had to go stop Zhao from using Combustion Man as a long-distance weapon to kill the moon spirit fish." Zhao hadn't been too happy with the idea of a festival meant to honor the moon.

"None of the students I've talked to know about it, either," Aang Took agreed. He bit a large chunk out of his pie. "It's really odd. You'd think they'd know things that go on in their own home continuum..."

Sokka shrugged. "Yeah, it is odd. Maybe it isn't a big deal, though?"

"Maybe," said Aang Took. "Tibet," he mused over the word. "Tibet...oh."

"What?"

"Have you ever heard Karen and Anjilly comparing the Air Nomads to something called Tibetan Buddhist monks?"

Sokka rubbed his chin. "Now that you mention it, yes. What's a Buddhist?"

"No idea. Some sort of monk related to this Tibet guy, apparently."

"Tibet would be a country," Sokka said. "I'm pretty sure. China is a country - and I still don't understand how that works, if he's a human - so Tibet would be too. Probably."

"So Tibet might be a country like the Air Nomads?" Aang Took frowned.

"Well, I wouldn't call the Air Nomads a _country_, exactly..."

"Right, right," said Aang Took. He was still frowning. "But, um, Sokka...the Air Nomads were wiped out by genocide."

There was a moment of silence. Jessica Carden and Owlson Pierce were attempting to grab their banners, but the boys were so tangled up in them that it was impossible. They finally gave up on trying to tug the banners away, and instead focused on disentangling Theodore. Izar had retrieved his hammer and was attempting to battle his way out of the fabric, but only succeeded in hitting Nathaniel in the gut.

"And China doesn't like Tibet," Sokka said at last. "That is...huh." He watched Jessica and Owlson pull Theodore out of the banners. "If something like that happened, you'd think they'd know about it."

Aang Took gave a little shrug. "Well...maybe it wasn't that bad. I mean...we don't really know. But we should probably ask Anjilly and Karen about it soon. Now I'm _really_ curious." He took another bite of his mushroom pie. "Sure you don't want a pie? I made them myself."

"I think I'm good," Sokka waved it off with a nervous grin on his face. Nearby, Izar and Nathaniel finally untangled themselves from the banners. Nathaniel grabbed Izar's hammer and started to chase him with it, hopping comically, while Theodore, Owlson, and Jessica laughed at them both.

"Stop running before you hurt yourselves!" Yue shouted from where she was overseeing Vera "V" Moretti, Moon Dragon, and Elise. No last name. put together a table.

Sokka couldn't help but laugh, and he sidled over to Yue. "But Yue," he said, "they're _students_. We don't mind if they get themselves hurt!"

She frowned. "Good point...okay... Stop running and get back to work!"

Nathaniel and Izar didn't seem to hear her. They were still running around like maniacs. Theodore had stopped laughing at them and was now helping Jessica Carden and Owlson Pierce re-hang their banners. Yue watched Nathaniel and Izar for a few more seconds before exploding.

"I SAID STOP RUNNING! DON'T MAKE ME USE MY MOON POWERS ON YOU!" Yue seemed to suddenly increase in size, towering over the students and emanating a frightful white glow.

The boys yelped, and quickly returned to their table. Satisfied, Yue dimmed, shrank down to normal, and turned back to the girls, who'd shrunk away in mild terror at her outburst. "Alright. So do you think you've got the hang of it now?"

"Y-yes!" Elise. No last name. squeaked.

"Thanks for the help!" Vera "V" Moretti added. Moon Dragon nodded fervently.

"Great!" said Yue. "In that case, I'd better go check on the flowers..."

"Sounds good," Sokka nodded. Yue gave him a sidelong glance before floating off toward another section of the yard, where another group of students was working.

"She is not happy with you," Aang Took observed.

Sokka groaned. "Just because I don't want to be with her doesn't mean we can't be friends! ...Right?"

Aang Took shrugged and bit into another mushroom pie. Sokka sighed and pulled out his scroll. "So...the lanterns."

Aang Took nodded toward the far side of the courtyard. "I think your girlfriend's taking care of it."

"Huh?" Sokka looked up to find Suki and the other Kyoshi Warriors directing a bunch of students in making lanterns. He grinned. "Perfect. They're in good hands."

* * *

"And then you wrap the paper around the bamboo frame," Suki said, watching the students. "Careful, don't rip it - "

"I'm _not_," Isabella Rose grumbled, even as she tore the paper she was wrapping around the bamboo. Suki sighed. Isabella Rose shot a seething look at her, and got whacked over the head by Kyoshi Warrior Two's fan for her trouble.

"Like this?" Zerkz asked, holding up the lantern he'd just finished.

Suki's face lit up. "Yes! Just like that! Perfect!"

Zerkz beamed and sent her a dreamy smile. Suki groaned to herself and turned away. She'd forgotten she was his Lust Object.

Well, at least he wasn't calling her a Mary Sue.

She looked around at the assembled students, most of whom didn't look happy to be there. It was plain to see that they were tired, and learning how to make paper lanterns was tricky when you were fully awake to begin with. The Kyoshi Warriors were doing their best to show the students how to do it, but the students seemed more interested in grumbling than in learning.

Suki sighed and shook her head.

She looked around the Pai Sho plaza to see how the rest of the preparations were coming along. The banners were getting hung, at least, and most of the tables looked passable. Princess Yue was overseeing one group of students who were attempting to put a table together, and...Sokka was talking to her.

Suki frowned, remembering the conversation she'd overheard between those two just the other day.

Then Yue floated off toward the students who were working on the flower garlands. Sokka turned his attention back to his scroll and Aang Took. Then he looked up towards the students who were making the lanterns, and he grinned. He caught Suki's eye and shot her a smile. She smiled back, and gave a little wave of her hand.

"OMG you two are so _cute_."

Suki turned around to find Zerkz, holding another finished lantern. "Um," she said. "Thanks?"

"SO CUTE," he said, looking like he might explode from happiness.

"Right," Suki said. "Can you go back to making lanterns?"

* * *

Lupe crashed backwards onto the ground, groaning in relief at finally getting off her feet. Meep and Lauphen hit the ground next to her, and [-] landed in front of them. "Lunch break! Finally! Who knew hammering miniature tables could take so much effort?" [-] groaned, pulling off his boots and starting to rub his feet.

"Or putting up decorations," Lauphen added, wincing as she flexed her legs. "How many strings of flowers do Karen and Anjilly think we need?"

"They're doing it to laugh at our misery," Spry Pye asserted as she sprawled on the ground. "I swear they are. Don't they already have staff people to do things like that? Why can't they just let us enjoy the stupid festival without wearing us out the day before?"

"Carpentry is sort of fun, though," Craig mused. "I mean, hitting nails with a hammer? Great stress relief."

"Be that as it may, I think our dear Course Coordinators are only making us do this as punishment," Daniel Clemens grumbled. "Why should we have to do all the hard work?"

"Why indeed?" Karen mused, taking a bite of a cookie. Daniel Clemens and William GP gave rather high-pitched screams and flinched away from her. Karen, who had managed to sneak up between them and crouch down without anyone noticing, raised an eyebrow sardonically and continued to eat her cookie.

"You—where—how—cookie—ahhh!" Daniel pointed at Karen, eyes wide. Lupe experienced a falling sensation in her stomach. So Karen was a ninja, too. Great.

"When did you get there?" William demanded, trying to recover his dignity.

"When indeed," Karen mused. "For all you know, I've been here since that last scene change." Something rumbled and crashed inside the school building. "Ignore that. In any case, I've eavesdropped long enough to hear you students mention how 'unfair' it is that the people who'll be attending the festival should be the ones setting up."

"Er…the subject…may have come up…" Spry Pye scooted several feet back. Some of the students sitting nearby noticed Karen's presence, and came over to join the conversation.

"Karen's here? Hey, can you get some of the guards to finish the set-up for us?" Cyrus Windfall requested. "Andy and Joe Smith already disappeared into the training forest… I think you can guess what for," Cyrus motioned in the general direction of the cluster of trees to one side of the courtyard.

"Yeah, I'm just waiting for them to announce their engagement," Daniel Hallowell agreed.

"No, I don't think they're serious about being together," Cyrus frowned. "Andy's been hitting on some of the Earth Kingdom students…I think she's been putting the moves on Ishi Bananas lately." He paused. "By the way, where is Ishi?"

"Over here!" Ishi waved from across the plaza.

"Gotcha!" Cyrus waved back. "In any case, I don't think Andy _or_ Joe are the marrying type."

"You got that right…" ihaznoideawuttowrite muttered. "_Joe's_ been hitting on _me_ for a week now. I heard he was targeting Ari Mason before then…and Fyre Elaine before her."

"Has everyone forgotten that Karen's _right there_?" Lupe jabbed her index finger towards the older girl. "Eating a cookie, _watching us_…?"

"Oh! Right!" Craig turned to face Karen. "So…about getting the guards to finish for us…I kind of have a lot of studying to do for a quiz in Fire Nation Military on Tuesday…"

"The guards will do no such thing," Anjilly replied for her partner, her presence behind Craig finally gaining the notice of the students. Craig yelped and lurched forward, landing on his face. "Oh look, lunch is here," Anjilly added, ignoring Craig's faceplant. Sure enough, several of the guards were wheeling carts filled with rice bowls out into the plaza.

"Rice again?" [-] made a face. "I've eaten so much rice since we got here, I half expect it to start pouring out of my ears."

"Well excuse us for giving you the authentic meal," Karen sniffed. "If you were ancient peasants, you'd be thankful you had food at all, especially since you'd have to grow it yourselves. Would you like that? Should we make you grow your own food? Get the full experience?" A light came into Karen's eyes, and her gaze drifted off. "Hmm...actually, that's not a bad idea..."

"No!" Lupe yelped. "No, no, it's fine, rice is fine! It's just...um...we're just tired of it. That's all."

"It's the main staple of most Asian countries, I do believe," Karen said.

"Main staple or no, I'm sick of it," [-] stuck his tongue out in mock disgust.

"Wimp," Karen snorted. A guard pushed his cart over to the small group of students, and started handing out bowls of rice and wooden chopsticks. Anjilly and Karen declined the food, and waited for the students to sort out who got food when before talking again.

"So, we hear you don't want to be setting up the festival," Anjilly began conversationally.

"And that you seem to think the guards should be the ones doing it instead," Karen continued for her.

"Of course you heard it, you were standing right behind us," Craig grumbled, and he flinched away from the looks Anjilly and Karen shot him.

"Yes! Exactly!" Daniel emphasized his words with gestures from his chopsticks. "Do you want us to fall asleep halfway through? At my school before I came here, we never had the students put up the decorations for dances or anything! It was all the teachers!"

"And now you think we should give up our own free time so we can set up something we probably won't enjoy?" Anjilly raised an eyebrow. "Ask yourselves this: Who will be having all the fun at the Mid-Autumn Festival tonight? The guards, who have to patrol the school like any other night, and won't be returning home to spend tonight with their families? Again? Or you?"

"Uhh…us?" Meep ventured. Nearby, a few more groups of students noticed that the Course Coordinators were present, and wandered over to listen in.

"Yes, you! You will be the ones enjoying tonight's festival!" Anjilly nodded approving to Meep. "So why should the guards, who will _not_ enjoy the festival, make the preparations so that you, who will enjoy the festival, can laze your day away?"

"We're not even having you guys do all the work," Karen added. "The Air Nomads have been baking for three days just to make all the foods we'll need for tonight. If we'd made you all do that, that'd be several days' worth of work right there…and I doubt the end products would be completely edible."

"She has a point…" Lauphen muttered, low enough that only Lupe, Meep, and [-] could hear.

"So really, you should be happy we're only having you set things up," Karen concluded.

"Why should we be happy about manual labor?" Karana Solara scowled.

"It's character building," Anjilly asserted. The group of assembled students rolled their eyes. "Come on, students, think about it. We're trying to give you experiences at this school that, if you so choose, will help you with writing your stories."

"And…how is making tables going to help us with writing?" William asked between shoveling rice into his mouth. He'd long ago given up on using chopsticks as anything but a method to move rice around in the bowl, and held the bowl up to his lips as he ate.

"Making tables? Not so much," Karen shrugged. "But it's the actual experience of having to do hard work to get ready for a festival that's the focus of it. Anjilly has a better explanation than me, I believe—Anj, if you would?"

"Sure," Anjilly nodded. "Students, it helps if you think of how your characters would experience a festival in Avatarverse. If they're just visitors, then you'll probably have them enjoy the festival without knowing anything about the set-up involved. But if you're writing about someone who lives in a village, or has lived in a village, and has had to participate in setting up a festival before, then you'll find yourself drawing on today to help describe your character's actions and reactions."

"I don't get it," Lupe spoke up. "How is all of this," she swept her arm to indicate the set-up area for the festival, "going to help us write?"

"To answer that, I have to ask you how you feel right now," Anjilly replied. Lupe furrowed her eyebrows, not understanding the question. "Are you tired? Sleepy? Maybe looking forward to finishing so you can attend the festival?"

"Um…I guess?" Lupe narrowed her eyes. "Why?"

"Think about how a village would work together to set up a festival," Anjilly explained. "Everyone would pitch in—men probably doing the hard labor, women baking, making decorations or sewing festival clothes for their families, all that. They do the hard work because they know there's going to be a reward later, the festival. It would be a pretty common experience in rural villages, maybe even some towns and smaller cities. Since the average small town or village dweller in the Avatarverse would have likely experienced something similar to this, we're giving you a taste of what they would experience in case you ever decide to write a character from the country."

"But what if we don't want to?" Shiri objected. "What if we only write stories about characters from cities?"

"Then I would say, you never know," Karen informed her. "Admittedly, you may never write about a character who would have experienced setting up a festival from scratch. But on the other hand, what if you find yourself wanting to write a character like that one day? Or a character who is doing some other sort of hard labor - building a house, raising a wall, that sort of thing. You'll be able to use this day's events to help yourself figure out how the character would feel. That's why I'm also going to advise you students to try looking forward to the celebration later tonight; a villager would look beyond the hard work of now to the reward of later."

"It's a lot easier to say than to do, you know," Vera Moretti pointed out accusingly.

"Yes, I do know," Karen agreed. "But I also know that personal experience goes a long way when you're writing a story. Research is a valuable tool, but I believe that if you can experience something your characters might go through, you should. Not everything, of course…but your real life memories can be applied to your characters."

"Can you give us an example?" Nicole Jackson asked.

"Of course I can!" Karen beamed. "Take…the death of a family member. I'm not going to ask anyone here if they've ever lost someone, because that would be rude and prying. I will definitely not say it's a good thing if you have lost someone, as opposed to if you haven't, because it's not. But I will say that if you've lost someone close to you, and you ever decide to write a story where a character has lost someone important to them, it would help to think about how you felt when you lost someone. Or maybe it was a family member you weren't close to—how would that affect a character? Would you be sad, even if you didn't know them as well as you could have? Would you be sad _because_ you didn't know them as well as you could have? How does your age affect your reaction? There's a lot of things you need to consider, and the more you know personally about some things, the greater of an advantage you'll have."

"Imagination can also play an important part, if you're lacking in any one area," Anjilly took over for her partner. "Going with Karen's example of losing a family member, or just losing someone in general, if you haven't gone through that personally you can still write a believable character who's gone through something like that. Indulge in a little make-believe: Ask yourself how you would feel if you lost someone. Consider the character's background, and think on how that might change things for them. A character that's served in the military might take the death of a family member differently than a character who's been sheltered all their life."

"Similar life experiences can also be used, like a bad break from a friendship," Karen interjected. "If you had a good friend, and something happened to make you not friends anymore, you could try to apply that to a story where a character's friend dies. The feelings of loss are similar enough that you can stretch and bend them a little to fit the story."

"Basically, the point is this," Anjilly said. "When writing, you want to actually think about things. Not just big things, like plot - though that's important too. But the devil's in the details, and if you can write out a good, detailed scene with all the proper actions and reactions and emotions, your story will be much, much better. Whether you're writing about a character's death or a hard day's work, you want it to be realistic. And the best way to achieve realism is to draw from your own experiences - write what you know, as they say. And that's why we're making you set up the festival by yourselves," Anjilly finished. "Any questions?"

"Umm…" Lupe glanced down at her rice bowl. "Do we get seconds?"

"No. Villagers in the rural Earth Kingdom would be happy to have that much rice for a meal. Go work it off," Karen instructed. "Any other questions?"

"Why is Anjilly acting normal? I thought Bleeprin made her all weird," Sofia called. Karen gave a start and glanced at Anjilly. She'd already resumed staring vacantly into the distance. The students cringed as Karen's fist slowly clenched.

"Thank you, Miss Owens," Karen gritted her teeth, "for dispelling _that_ plothole's effects. Now _I_ have to do the paperwork…"

* * *

"A bit to the left! The left!" Elise shouted. Lupe and Amy Ochanian, holding Elise's legs and trying not to drop her, shuffled to their rights. "No, other way! Your left, not mine!"

"This is when I ask why nobody's Earthbending pillars for us to reach high places," Lupe gasped as she tried to correct Elise's position.

"And this is where I ask why I agreed to be the one holding someone up," Amy puffed. "Blue Witten said she could do it, why didn't I let her take my place?"

"You thought you could handle a seventeen-year-old girl," Blue called. She held up a string of banners, and inspected one end. "Midori, Zuna, I think this is fraying on the end. What should we do?"

"Tie a knot," Midori B.M. suggested. "We can tie it to the nail just before the frayed area starts." Elise started banging a nail into the wooden stand above Lupe's head, the movement making it all the harder to hold her up. Lupe sent a prayer out to whoever was listening that she wouldn't drop Elise before the banner was up—this was the last one they had to do.

A short ways off, several of the male students were debating how to handle the last few tables. They were mostly finished, and in fact a good deal of the students had already given up working and were passed out on one end of the plaza. Those that weren't done had just enough work left to make them hate the slackers.

"I think the leg on that one is crooked," Wei Tzu tapped the table Sunan, señor dangao pickle, and Mai4 were working on. "If we try to put anything on it, it'll fall off."

"No, it looks good to me," Zerkz squinted at the table, crouching to get its surface at eye level. "Okay…maybe a little slant, but nothing big. They're doing fine."

"Boys," Somariel rolled her eyes. "You'll notice us girls are doing a decent job." She gestured to the table that she, Carsten D, and Amber Railey were working on. "We haven't hit our fingers as many times as you have, either."

"Great. Now my thumb is throbbing as a reminder," Zerkz muttered.

"Our table's perfectly fine," señor dangao pickle grumbled. "Man, this school is seriously lacking in bronies…"

Had Mai4 been present, she would have heartily agreed with him. However, seeing as she'd been turned into an awkward teapot - again - and kidnapped by a tea-stealing rodent, she was unable to comment on OFUA:TLA's brony population.

"I don't think we'll have any problems with it," Wei Tzu said. "We'll just have to be careful not to jostle the table, or put things with round bottoms on it."

"Then…we're done?" Zerkz asked hopefully. Wei Tzu nodded. "Yes! Finally!"

"Done with making the tables," Wei Tzu corrected him. "We need to put these last three in place, and get some tablecloths for them. Other than that, though, I think we're good."

"Done!" Elise shouted, and gave a last tug on the banner. Lupe and Amy lowered her to the ground, groaning as they finally set her down. "Hey! I'm not that heavy!"

"Heavy enough," Lupe muttered. Amy snorted in amusement, and patted Elise on the shoulder.

"Don't worry, I'm sure I would have weighed just as much," she assured her fellow Earth Kingdom student. "…if not more."

"Hey, the girls are done," Zerkz noted. "Great! Oi, you lot!" he cupped his hands around his mouth. "Why don'tcha come help us move these tables onto the Cookie Plaza?"

"Move them yourself!" Elise shouted back. "We're tired!"

"'We?'" Lupe scoffed. "You just had to swing a hammer a couple of times! Amy and I did all the hard work!"

"Swinging a hammer was work enough," Elise sniffed.

"Actually, the guards will finish up," Karen sauntered out of the main school building, a Lemur on each shoulder. "You will return to your dorm rooms and change into your formal school uniforms for the festival. Be back in the plaza in one hour."

"Huh? We've only got these uniforms," Somariel gestured to her own dirty red-and-yellow school uniform.

"Not anymore, you don't," Karen grinned. "When you return to your rooms, you should find your formal uniforms set out on your cots. They're pretty generic robes, despite the national differences in fashion, more from my own laziness in design than anything else. Hurry, now, we have to get the feast set up."

"Feast?" Huanzhe called, perking up. The students that had fallen asleep/unconscious woke up at the word.

"Yes, feast," Karen smiled in amusement. "Run along now…it seems Ms. Rose, Ms. Johnson, and Captain Kirk are going to beat you to the dorms." There was a beat of silence, and Karen realized no one knew who she was talking about. "Isabella Rose, Scarlet Johnson, and Freeranger," she sighed.

"Oh," someone said. Everyone began to climb to their feet and shuffle towards the student dorms. Lupe was amongst them, wondering what the formal uniform would look like, and hoping it didn't have a cookie pattern.

* * *

The formal uniforms did not have a cookie pattern. And, in Lupe's opinion, they were lovely. Her time at OFUA:TLA had educated Lupe enough for her to be fairly sure that they were based on the clothing Toph's family wore—once the students had assembled in the Cookie Plaza between the girl and boy dorms, Sunan and Sofia Owens had begun discussing how the Bei Fongs wore Tang Dynasty _hanfu_, not that Lupe was interested. [-] was admiring his long jacket, particularly the gold-hued trim, and the fancy slipper-shoes that everyone had gotten. Meep seemed content to stare at the huge sleeves of her uniform, waving her arms around and pretending to be a bird. Lauphen had knocked on Lupe's door earlier to ask for help wrapping the female uniform's long robe around herself, and keeping the belt neat.

Once the students had finished freshening up—the dorms had huge bathrooms with nice showers that nearly everyone utilized—and returned to their rooms, they had found their uniforms laid out on their beds, just like Karen had said they would be. Each Nation had a different color scheme for their uniforms: the Fire Nation uniforms used reds and a deep yellow [-] insisted was gold, the Earth Kingdom students wore green and bright yellow, the Air Nomads had yellow and orange, and the Water Tribes (the only Nation that didn't have yellow in their uniform) got blue, purple, and white. Ashee Bieber was parading around in her formal uniform, perfectly all right with wearing a skirt for once, showing off and talking about how Zuko would just _have_ to fall for her now. The other Zukomancers, Lupe included, had similar sentiments about themselves.

After changing into their uniforms, which took a little trial and error for the girls, the students had piled out into the courtyard. Delicious smells were coming from the Cookie Plaza, and Lupe's stomach rumbled, reminding her it hadn't gotten enough to eat earlier. She licked her lips, and joined the rest of the students in a march to the Cookie Plaza.

"Good afternoon, students!" Karen grinned as they arrived. "Please take a seat at a table. I see everyone's managed to get into their formal uniform without injury? Ms. Megdaline, please stop pretending you're a bird and sit down. Thank you."

Lupe slid into a seat near the edge of the plaza, and the other five seats at her table were taken by [-], Lauphen, Meep, Andy, and Ai Da. "You're not sitting with Joe?" Lauphen asked Andy in surprise.

"No, he's bugging the Water Tribe girls today," Andy nodded her head to a table a little ways off, where Joe Smith was grinning at Ashee Bieber, Chriss Soh, Danish, Allie Doyle, and Vera Moretti. "Besides, it's not like we're together together or anything. We just like…having fun together."

"Come to think of it, we haven't had many relationships spring up among students," Ai Da mused. "I would have thought that we'd get a few couples, at least. The closest we've gotten is you and Joe."

"You have a point," Lupe realized. "Shouldn't more people be into each other?"

"I don't think you guys are taking into account the presence of Lust Objects," Lauphen said. "Think about it: Would you want to get into a relationship with someone if Brad Pitt were around?"

"Isn't Brad Pitt old now?" Meep wrinkled her nose.

"Well…yes," Lauphen admitted, "but that's not the point. My point is, if the person you desire enough to stampede and attempt to glomp, even with the dangers of the Lemurs, is around, are you really going to look at anybody else? Lupe, who have you been interested in so far this semester?"

"Who…?" Lupe blushed. "Just…Zuko…"

"A perfect example," Lauphen nodded. "Most of us are die-hard fangirls and fanboys. With our Lust Objects around, it'll be hard to develop feelings for anyone else…not that it's impossible, but it'll be hard for some people." Lupe had to lean in to hear her properly: the other students were starting conversations of their own, and the buzz of noise was beginning to get loud.

"So…where's that yummy smell coming from?" [-] asked, noticing Lupe's discomfort and changing the subject. "I think I smell noodles!"

"Umm…not sure…" Lupe, grateful for the subject change, craned her head around. "I don't see any food dishes, and there's nothing on any of the other tables…"

"Wait a minute, there's an open door over there," Ai Da pointed. "I think that's about where the kitchens should be? Amy and I were investigating a few weeks ago, and we narrowed down its location to that general area."

"You didn't find the kitchens? Why?" Lauphen asked.

"Er…" Ai Da looked away. "We…may have been caught by the Blue Spirit…"

"You got caught by Zuko? Lucky!" Meep sighed. A dreamy look spread over her face. "If he caught me…" Lupe wondered if she should tell her friends that Marshall Arts was the Blue Spirit now, not Zuko. On the one hand, it would mean divulging the secret knowledge that only Lupe had, which gave her an edge on her fellow students. But on the other hand, these guys were her friends.

Lupe was spared from having to make a decision by a sudden blast of trumpets. Nearly all the students shrieked and clapped their hands over their ears. All eyes turned to the front doors of the school, where Karen and Anjilly had appeared, wearing their own ideas of fancy clothing—Anjilly in colorful Earth Kingdom robes, Karen with a conical party hat on her head and her usual attire.

"Good afternoon, students!" Karen called and gave a majestic wave. The effect was spoiled by her party hat falling off. Sake, who seemed to have taken a liking to Karen, snatched it and flew off. "As you are probably aware, today is the Mid-Autumn Festival for our school. Yes, Ms. Owens, you've mentioned our timing is off, no need to interrupt me again.

"Now, in celebration of the Mid-Autumn Festival, we have arranged several entertainments for you. While this holiday would normally be for families, the circumstances at our school prevent you from spending time with your relatives this evening. Instead, we've decided to make the festival be about international cooperation for the Avatar Nations. You as students have done an admirable job of cooperating with your fellow Nation groups, for which we are very thankful indeed. However, since certain elements of our staff…cough-Fire Lords-cough…seem intent on stirring up trouble, we hope to use you all as an example to them of just how wonderful peace is."

"Did she just _say_ 'cough'?" [-] muttered.

"Yes," his table-mates whispered.

"To start, we are going to have a feast." Cheering erupted amongst the students, and Karen waited for it to die down before continuing. "After the feast, we will have a school dance—the kind you would expect to have at a high school in the Real World's America."

More cheers.

"A _regular_ high school in America," Anjilly added. "Not a high school that has required fun and likes to think it's British and plays God with the days of the week and creates plotholes that drop you directly into the PPC's Department of Personnel..." She shuddered and downed a bleeprin pill.

There were a few more confused cheers. Karen gave a wry grin as they faded. "Before that, however, some of our guards have volunteered to perform a traditional Chinese - er, Fire Nation dragon dance." Karen paused just in case, and sighed when there was no reaction from the students. "No appreciation for culture…"

"Wait, Chinese dragon dance?" Lupe asked her friends, voice quiet. "I thought the Fire Nation was based on Japan..." A chocolate chip cookie flew out of nowhere and hit her directly between the eyes. "OW! What was that for?"

"You'll learn later," Karen said. "Tonight, we focus on the festival. Anyways, the school dance will continue until the moon has risen high enough to be seen over the school's walls. At that point the dance will end, and everyone will take a seat at the low tables near the training forest to view the moon."

"When do we go to bed?" Izzy Smiling shouted.

"Whenever you want to," Karen shrugged. "You could go to bed right now, if you want. At any point during the afternoon, evening, and night, students will be free to head to their dorm and turn in. Of course," Karen's lips twitched, "that would mean you miss out on quality time with the staff."

"Staff?" Ashee and Danish's heads snapped up. "Where?"

"Soon, soon," Karen chuckled. "The staff will be along shortly. We have that long table there—yes, there, the thing I'm pointing at—that we will be eating at. Students are prohibited from attempting to glomp, hug, kiss, or otherwise force their affections on members of the canon during the festival. Staff members in romantic relationships will be sticking near each other at all times, so if you, oh, attempt to glomp Zuko, expect to face a rain of stilettos before the Lemurs can get close." Lupe frowned at that one—but no matter. Zuko _would_ be hers.

"And…yes, I think that's all," Karen clapped her hands together cheerfully. "All right then, food will be served momentarily. Expect the rest of the staff to come out not long after the serving starts. Enjoy your meal!" Karen started to walk down the steps, then stopped and looked back at her partner. "Err…Anj, follow me."

"The sky is so blue," Anjilly sighed. "So blue." Karen sighed and grabbed her partner's wrist, then proceeded to drag her to the long table set up under a framework of awnings and flower decorations. Lupe saw movement out of the corner of her eye, and turned her head to see a stream of guards with plates of food coming out of the open door in the school building, thus proving said door led to the kitchen.

"Told you I smelled noodles," [-] whispered to Meep as a guard set a huge bowl of noodles down on the group's table. Ai Da raised an eyebrow, and gave the rest of the table a meaningful look that went completely over Lupe's head. Andy started to snicker, while Lauphen looked away and huffed a sigh in annoyance.

"So, what's new with the Earth Kingdom?" Andy asked Ai Da as everyone at the table reached out with their chopsticks and managed to heap some noodles onto their plates.

"Not much," Ai Da replied, twirling her chopsticks so they captured some noodles. "Caelin Cacanisius and his friend Colin got caught trying to sneak around the school at night again. Karen condemned them to the dungeons with Azula for a week. They were banned from the festival tonight, too, because they don't seem to get the point of all the punishment Karen deals out. Azula's getting bored with making them clean up her messes for her."

"Speaking of Azula, I haven't seen her around the school that much," Meep piped up. "Why do you think that is? Other than her being insane…"

"Actually, I heard Karen and Anjilly managed to get Azula rehabilitated enough to function," Lupe recalled. "Something about lots of ice cream and family counseling. Oh, and stress relief exercises?"

"The Staff is here!" Jessica Carden squealed, jumping up and pointing. Sure enough, the Staff was there, wearing fancy outfits, being escorted by the Lemurs and some of the guards. All memory of Karen's earlier warning flew out of Lupe's head, and she found herself on her feet, the group of Staff getting larger by the second. Her eyes fixed on Zuko, with Mai clutching his arm (ugh, she'd have to do something about that) and Iroh standing near him protectively. Lupe was absolutely positive Zuko would fall for her once he saw her in the formal uniform—and once he did, he would realize that she was of course his One True Love, and all those other Zukomancers would be jealous but it wasn't like she cared at all other than that she could totally lord it over them and…

That was when Marshall appeared in front of her.

"Oof!" Lupe grunted as they collided. She'd been running at top speed to reach Zuko first, before the other Zukomancers who'd also gotten to their feet, and to stay ahead of the other Lusters stampeding for their respective Lust Objects. Marshall was unready for the sudden impact, and fell backwards, cushioning Lupe's fall and keeping her from getting her clothing dirty. Around them, students who had been stampeding found themselves confronted by a wall of guards and lemurs.

"You can't do thiiiiis!" Rikki Brook wailed, flailing as a guard put her in a bear hug. "Zuko! Please! Tell them to stop! You know we're meant to _beeee_!"

"No! Zuko is mine!" Fyre Elaine screamed at Rikki, trying and failing to shake off the lemurs that had her pinned to the ground. "Hands off!"

"I've always been amused at how they can never agree who you belong to," Sokka told Zuko, watching the stampede devolve into a wrangling. "And at how we use cattle terms to describe their actions."

"Maybe they should just accept that Zuko doesn't belong to anyone," Mai shook her head in disgust and clutched her boyfriend's arm a little tighter. "He's a person, not a thing."

"Do not speculate on the mind of the fangirl, my dear," Iroh advised. "It is not a good thing to contemplate. There are some terrors even the bravest should not face."

"Umm…hi," Lupe blinked as her brain processed the fact that she was staring at Marshall. "How…are you?"

"No está mal. Usted?" Marshall smiled as he used Spanish. Lupe winced at his horrible pronunciation.

"Estoy bien," she replied. It occurred to her that she was no longer on her feet, and she got to them as fast as she could "Uhh…so sorry…lemme help you up…" Marshall accepted the hand Lupe held out, and she hauled him to his feet.

"To your seats, students! To your seats!" a guard started to shout. Lupe sighed and gave Zuko a wistful look—or tried to, but he was already hidden behind the guards standing protectively around their Fire Lord.

"Come on," Marshall had yet to let go of her hand, and gave it a gentle tug. "Is there an extra seat at your table? I can meet your friends! They're not as crazy as you make them sound, are they?"

"Well, maybe Meep…" Lupe trailed off as she saw Huanzhe take her empty seat. The middle-aged man smiled at the others around the table, making them all scoot their seats away from him. "Great. Now my spot's gone."

"It is?" Marshall didn't look too disappointed, Lupe noted. "Well, if your seat's taken, you can sit at the minor character table with me. We have the tables on either side of the big one for the major characters and Agents." He pointed, and Lupe realized she would have a seat much closer to Zuko if she accepted Marshall's offer.

Something made her cautious, though. "I'm not a minor character," she reminded Marshall. "Won't that be a problem?"

"Technically, neither am I," Marshall shrugged. "I'm an anomaly created by a misspelling. But I still get to sit there! And you work for me, so it should be okay. Come on!" Lupe realized Marshall hadn't let go of her hand yet, and he used it to pull her towards the minor characters table.

Several canons noticed Marshall approaching with a student, and jumped to their feet. "What are you doing?" a man in Fire Nation armor cried. "That's a student! She's not supposed to come near the Staff tables!"

"She's my assistant," Marshall explained. "Don't worry, she'll behave. Her seat got taken, so I offered to let her sit with us. There's going to be an extra seat if she doesn't—Azula locked Enma in his room while he was meditating, and won't tell us where the key is."

"Empty seat or not, she's a student!" the Fire Nation man jabbed a finger at Lupe. "Expecting restraint from a student is like expecting a viper-bat to fly at noon!"

"I don't know," an Earth Kingdom man that Lupe thought looked familiar speculated from next to the Fire Nation soldier. "The other day, I could have _sworn_…"

"Very funny, Fong," the Fire Nation soldier snapped. Lupe realized where she'd seen him—season two, episode one. He was General Fong, the man who'd tried to force Aang into the Avatar State and endangered Katara. The Fire Nation man was harder to place, sadly.

"I'm just saying, give the girl a chance," Fong insisted.

"You're only saying that to rile me up!"

"Or maybe I'm just trying to be the bigger person," Fong smirked. "She is a Fire Nation student." The Fire Nation man grumbled, and Fong ignored him. He turned to Lupe and smiled. "Hello there, I'm General Fong. Normally I command a base in the western Earth Kingdom, but I've been recruited into helping with security at this school. I'll also be giving a few lectures about the military to the Earth Kingdom students later in the semester, but I don't think that will interest a Fire Nation student like you."

"Thanks," Lupe smiled nervously. Marshall drew out a seat for her next to Fong, then sat on her other side. Some of the students noticed Lupe at the Staff table, and began to whisper amongst themselves. Chloe Cooksey tried to sneak over, probably to see if she could get a seat too, but was quickly spotted and dealt with by the guards.

Some guards wheeled out a large cart with a covered dish, and headed for the largest Staff table. Lupe watched it go by, and got a whiff of something delicious from it. Her stomach rumbled as she thought of the noodles at her previous table—they were good, but portions were small…

Wheels squeaked behind Lupe, and she started as a guard reached over her shoulder to set a plate down in front of her. There was something that looked like fried rice, with bits of vegetable and egg mixed in, bite-sized dumplings, and a series of orange slices arranged to look like a flower. More guards put small bowls of white rice, spices, sauces, and toppings down next to each person sitting at the minor characters table, then added a pair of lacquered wood chopsticks.

Lupe licked her lips—the food looked delicious. The large cart with the delicious smell stopped in front of Karen and Anjilly's big table, and Karen leaned forward eagerly.

"The main dish has arrived!" she announced, then paused. "Well, for the Staff. Lee, why don't you lift the cover?"

"My pleasure," the guard closest to the cart bowed and turned to the large dish. With a completely unnecessary hand flourish, he pulled off the cover to reveal…

…a rather delicious-looking roasted cowpig, with an apple in its mouth and an arrangement of vegetables around the edges of the platter. Lupe's stomach growled, despite the food already in front of her, and she was reminded that the majority of her diet since coming to OFUA:TLA had been rice, vegetables, smoked sea slug, and tea. She hadn't had anything with substantial meat since arriving.

"We're getting meat?" Fyre Elaine cried, tears starting to form in her eyes. "Yes! Thank you!"

"What?" Karen looked around in surprise. "They're getting meat? When did that happen?"

"Yeah, I thought the students were only getting vegetarian dishes," Sokka tapped his chin thoughtfully. "You know, in honor of the Air Nomad aspect of the festival?"

"Though I personally don't understand how that works, since the Mid-Autumn Festival is supposed to be for appreciating the moon, which would imply some Water Tribe basis," Karen added. "But I suppose I see where Anj was coming from when she mentioned the Air Nomad affiliation with autumn."

"And even if we were serving meat, the Air Nomad students are being forced into vegetarianism anyways," Katara concluded cheerfully.

"So…we aren't getting meat?" Ida Smithsonian ventured.

"No," the main Staff all snapped.

And thus, the students watched with growling stomachs as the Staff were served slices of juicy cowpig. Aang declined on principle, but Sokka and Karen had no such reservations, and happily dug in. Lupe looked mournfully at the pork-steaks Fong and Marshall were served, then picked up a dumpling with her chopsticks and brought it to her mouth. She was still having trouble with chopsticks, and dropped the dumpling onto her fried rice.

"You're holding them wrong," Marshall noted. "Put one like a pencil, and the other tucked under your index finger…here, like this," he demonstrated with his own chopsticks.

"Sofia told me the same thing a month ago," Lupe informed him glumly. "I just can't get the hang of the pinching motion."

"Hmm…" Marshall studied Lupe's hands. "Here…" he reached forward and rearranged her fingers. "Try not to grasp it too tightly. If you do, you could cramp your hand, and that hurts. You need a more relaxed hand posture, like you're painting."

"I'm not a painter," Lupe reminded him.

"Good point," Marshall admitted. "Here, watch me…see?" He picked up an orange slice from his plate and brought it to his mouth, his chopsticks holding it firm all through. Lupe watched his hands move, envious of his skill—very few of the students could eat with chopsticks as well as he could. When he caught her looking, Marshall blushed a light pink and looked away.

"Maybe we should ask a guard to find her some silverware," Fong suggested. "I think Karen and Anjilly have some for when they make their weird 'Real World, Western' food."

"She's here to learn about our world, isn't she?" the grumpy Fire Nation soldier next to Fong muttered. "I don't see how being soft will help."

"Don't mind Colonel Shinu," Fong rolled his eyes. "He's still upset that his only appearance in the series was to be one-upped by Zhao after a very convenient promotion."

"_Too_ convenient," Shinu grumbled. "I suspect treachery. At least I don't have to deal with that infuriating man _tonight_..."

"Um, why's that?" Lupe asked.

"He wasn't too keen on the idea of a festival for the moon," Fong said, "so Karen and Anjilly locked him in his room to prevent any murder attempts. They did the same to Hama, too. Bloodbending and dinner don't mix, you know."

"They aren't letting the Princess attend either," Shinu added. "Said she's too unstable still to spend any length of time among the students. Something about it being too dangerous for the students, though why that would be an issue is beyond me. I expect she's sulking in the dungeon. Maybe she'll come by for moon-viewing later…"

"Er…right," Lupe said, turning her attention back to her food. "I think I'll use my hands." She reached for an orange slice. Marshall deftly whacked her fingers with his chopsticks. "Ow! What was that for?"

"It's rude to eat those foods with your hands," Marshall admonished. "If you're so hungry, here…" He picked up a dumpling from Lupe's plate with his chopsticks, and held it out to her.

"Ooooh," Karana Solara and Spry Pye giggled from the nearest student table.

"Umm…no thanks, I'll figure it out myself," Lupe tried to wave the chopsticks away. Marshall looked hurt, and lowered the chopsticks. He had the remarkable ability to look like an adorable puppy dog that had just been kicked when he felt hurt, and Lupe felt guilt bubbling up in her stomach. "Well…j-just the one, okay?"

Marshall instantly brightened, and raised the chopsticks again. Blushing furiously, Lupe closed her eyes and opened her mouth, closing it the moment she felt the dumpling against her tongue. She chewed as quickly as she could, then snatched up another dumpling with her chopsticks and brought her face close to her plate so she could shove it into her mouth before it dropped.

"Aw, that's adorable," Fong grinned at the exchange. "Just your assistant, eh, Marshall?"

"Yes," Lupe interrupted before Marshall could reply. She was speaking through a full mouth, but she was more concerned with clearing up any misunderstandings than being polite. "Just his assistant. That's all. I'm going to marry Zuko."

"Sure you are," Fong snorted. "You and about five hundred other fangirls..." Lupe kept her head down and shoveled fried rice into her mouth, ignoring the occasional catcall from Spry or Karana, the only two students who had noticed Marshall feeding Lupe the dumpling.

After the second course of fried rice, dumplings, oranges, and (for the non-Airbender Staff) pork-steak, the guards doing the serving took away the used dishes and brought out stir-fries of tomato-carrots, pea-beans, and potato-onions. Lupe followed Fong's advice and mixed some white rice into the stir-fry, then topped it off with soy sauce. The result actually didn't taste too bad, though it was a bit too tangy for Lupe's preference.

The fourth course was soup, thick and made from all-vegetarian ingredients. Several of the Fire Nation and Water Tribe students were in tears over the lack of meat, notably Nathaniel, Craig, Daniel Clemens, Theodore, and William. Cyrus and Daniel Hallowell, both Earth Kingdom students, snickered at their fellow students' pain.

"How much more food are we getting?" Lupe whispered to Fong after the fourth course was taken away. "I'm starting to get full, and these portions are really small."

"This next course will be the last—desert," Fong clarified as the guards doing the serving started setting large bowls of fruit down between Staff members. Each student table got a bowl as well, to be shared amongst the students sitting there.

"Hey, there are apples!" Lupe reached out and grabbed a fruit. Several other Staff members and students were already eating, so she bit into the apple, then nearly moaned. "They're…they're normal apples!"

"We do have normal cabbages, too," Shinu told Lupe as he selected a pear for himself. "Lots of our plants are what you consider 'normal.' It's just a few of our main vegetables and fruits that you're not familiar with."

"Yeah, we have rice, and that's not a cross of anything from your Real World," a passing guard agreed with the colonel.

"Still, it's like almost everything else here is some weird cross of things from my world," Lupe complained. "I'm actually starting to get surprised when things are normal."

"Now you know how we feel," Fong chuckled. He selected a pear from the bowl before him and bit in.

The fruit bowls were almost gone when drums started to beat. Izar Laun had been in the middle of a swallow, and wound up choking on his orange. Theodore pounded his back, effectively saving his fellow student from suffocating and Katara from having to use her spirit water.

A line of red appeared on the edges of Lupe's vision, and she turned her head to see about fifty Fire Nation guards holding the poles for a fake dragon. They had all put on headbands with long tails and a Fire Nation insignia on the front, then added decorative arm and leg bracers with gold facing and flowing red ribbons.

"Students, please turn your attention to the dragon dance, performed for us by Fifty Guards Named Lee!" Karen announced, then added, "That seriously is the name of their performance group. 'Fifty Guards Named Lee.' I had to negotiate a contract with their manager to get them to do a dragon dance for the festival. They're going on tour across the Fire Nation next month."

Lupe watched as the guards started to run forward, leaning their poles one way, then the other, making the dragon look like it was rippling as it flew towards the main Staff table. When it was a few feet away, it abruptly turned, and dipped down to one side before snaking under the back half of its body and circled the student tables.

Sadly, the students weren't impressed. Midori and Nicole yawned, then rested their heads in their arms. Moon Dragon and Carsten D looked ready to copy them any moment.

"No appreciation for culture," Karen shook her head in disgust.

Azulon and Ozai watched the entire dance with disapproving frowns, and though technically Azulon was dead and Ozai had been deposed, the unfavorable attitude the Fire Lords had towards the dragon dance was definitely unnerving to the guards. Decades of the repression of individuality through cultural outlets such as dance and—right, fanbrats. No care for the arts.

Sozin, at least, looked rather indifferent to the whole thing - no one knew when dancing was outlawed in the Fire Nation, but it'd definitely been legal during Sozin's time. Azulon and Ozai, meanwhile, spent the entire performance glaring at the guards, muttering about wastes of time and pointless displays. Zuko watched the entire thing with a proud gaze, giving the dancing guards approving nods.

After not being allowed to do dragon dances for a long time, the guards somehow managed to do a pretty good job. Halfway through the performance, Zuko leaned towards Aang. "Thanks for helping these guys out," he whispered.

"Oh, it wasn't a problem!" Aang grinned. "It was pretty fun, actually! Next time, I'm gonna teach them the camelephant strut."

Zuko grinned. "Whatever you think will help jumpstart the recovery of the Fire Nation's cultural heritage. Even if the dance moves are a hundred years old..."

At that moment, a tiny burst of flames sprung up at the nearest dancer's feet. The man yelped and jumped away, but quickly recovered and continued the dance. Zuko and Aang turned baleful looks toward Azulon and Ozai, who beamed back at them, the picture of innocence. Then they went back to glaring at the dancing guards. It was a show of their dedication that the guards finished the dragon dance before running off.

"All right," Karen stood up and clapped her hands to draw the students' wandering attention. "It's time for the dance."

"WOOOOT!" Half the students leapt to their feet, knocking their chairs over. "PAAAAARTYYYY!"

_THWAP!_

"You will all sit down now, or I will allow the Waterbender staff to water-whip you again," Karen informed the students sternly. "Thank you…now, before we start the dance officially, we'll be having a little game. I need all the female students to assemble in the center of the clear space between the student seating area and the staff tables."

"That includes you, I think," Fong whispered to Lupe. She nodded agreement, and went to join the other female students. Marshall and Fong waved as she left, and she returned the gesture tentatively. While Marshall was her boss, Fong was a crazy Earthbender general that tried to force Aang into the Avatar State. Fong seemed nice enough, but Lupe thought it was best to be wary with any canon characters.

"You got to sit at a staff table!" Shiri hissed to Lupe as the Fire Nation student joined the other girls. "You lucky, lucky, lucky thing! How'd you manage that?"

"Huanzhe stole my chair, and I—why is Huanzhe with the female students?" Lupe blinked, then leaned away. Huanzhe, hearing his name, turned and grinned at Lupe.

"Don't ask," Somariel muttered. "Isabella and Scarlet did, about five minutes ago…um, he said something really quietly so they were the only ones to hear. They're over there," Somariel jerked a thumb over her shoulder. Lupe leaned over to see the two bi-National students sitting in fetal positions on the ground, pale and shaking.

"It's like they've finally realized life is meaningless," Zuna spoke, voice monotone.

"You do realize even Mai isn't that depressing, right?" Elise asked her. Zuna's answer was lost as Karen blew a didgeridoo.

"Where did you get that thing?" Aang demanded once the noise had died away. "It's almost louder than an Airbender horn! Almost," he emphasized. "Our greater wind speed makes the sound louder."

"It's amazing, what you can get from Amazon dot com," Karen grinned. "All right, guards, escort the female Staff to join the students. Lemurs on standby. Be warned, students, any glomping or murder attempts will have you on cleanup duty after the Festival is over, and you will be barred from participating in the dance."

Lupe felt dizzy as the female Staff got up and started to walk towards the huddle of students. She saw Katara _she was going to get to talk to Katara oh Madre di Dios_—no. Glomping bad. Katara might be Lupe's favorite female character, but she was not going to risk being banned from the dance just because Katara was awesome.

Some other students had different feelings. "Die, Mary Suki!" Ashee Bieber screamed, and lunged for Suki. Tsuki and Zuki were faster, and with the help of Suko and Sukkis picked the fangirl up and carried her off to the sidelines.

"No glomping," a guard warned the female students. Zuna eyed Mai, but wisely did nothing.

"All right, everyone, reach into your pockets," Karen called.

"We don't have pockets!" Somariel protested.

"Yes you do. The sashes of your dress uniforms have small pockets sewn into the ends," Karen pointed to Blue Witten, the student closest to her. "You, reach into the edge of your sash. Tell me what you find."

Hesitant, and uncertain that Karen was telling the truth, Blue Witten held up the end of her sash and probed it with her fingers. Blue's eyes widened as she found an opening, and she reached in hesitantly to pull out…

"…okay, other end," Karen grumbled as Blue stared in confusion at the Earth Kingdom passport hidden in her sash. "Though you'll all need your passports next semester…but I'm getting ahead of myself. In case the boys are curious, their sashes should also have their passports." Blue tried the other end of her sash, and pulled out a green ribbon embroidered at one end with Chinese characters. The opposite end was attached to a small wooden handle.

"Lan-se," Sofia leaned close to read the characters. "Chinese for 'blue.'"

"All the female students have ribbons, colored to correspond to their Nation, with their names embroidered in Chinese characters," Karen explained. "Please take them out now." Lupe reached into her sash and pulled out a long red ribbon with a dark mahogany handle.

"What are we going to use these for?" Emma shouted.

"We're going to have you do a ribbon dance," Karen motioned to the group of female Staff members, still surrounded by guards and lemurs. "The canon girls will demonstrate the steps—it's very simple, so you should be able to pick it right off. Male students and male canons, please move to surround the girls. Girls, make sure there's enough room for you to do the dance."

"These are the steps," Katara informed the female students nearest her as the boys shuffled to surround them. "See…right foot in front, arc the ribbon over your head left to right, left foot in front, arc the ribbon over your head right to left, repeat. Walk in a circle, try to keep an even distance between the person in front of you and behind you. At the end of the dance, we'll all toss our ribbons at the boys."

"Why?" Lupe asked, a bit dizzy from the realization that she was talking to Katara.

"Karen will tell you when we're ready," Katara shook her head. "Okay, let's get in a circle!" With the help of the female guards and the Lemurs, the female canons managed to get the female students into a rough circle. Okay, it was more like an oval, but it was curved, and that was enough for the Staff. Around them, the boys formed an even rougher ring, tapping their feet and eyeing their female Lust Objects.

"Looks like everyone's in place," Karen smiled, "so I'll explain what we're going to do." The black-clad woman glanced at her partner, who was still smiling dreamily at the sky, and her grin grew forced. She muttered something under her breath, then returned her attention to the students. "I presume the female Staff have explained the dance steps to the students? Katara's nodding, I assume that's a yes. All right, at the end of the dance, when I give the signal, the girls will stop and throw their ribbons to the boys. Each boy is required to catch a ribbon. I've evened out the numbers by asking guards to participate, male and female both. Whoever catches a girl's ribbon, he is required to dance to the first and last songs with her."

"But…Zuko's with the boys," Vera Moretti pointed. "What if he catches a ribbon?"

"Then he will dance the first and last song with whoever's ribbon he catches," Karen's eyes twinkled in amusement. "Even if that person is a student."

The subsequent uproar (Ashee Bieber let out a very piercing scream, as she had lost her chance to dance with Zuko before she even knew she had it) drowned out Karen's next words, until she blew on the didgeridoo. "Seriously, where is that coming from?" Aang yelled. "It wasn't there two seconds ago! And…it's not there now?"

"Plothole," Karen shrugged. "Okay students, get ready to dance. The Flamey-o's are using this as a chance to set up their instruments, so we'll have to be quick, they don't need long…everyone ready? Okay, dance!"

Caught unprepared, half the female students failed to process Karen's words for a few seconds and stood still. The rest managed to start moving, and bumped into their fellow students, then stumbled. Rikki Brook managed to bump into Katara, and was promptly swarmed by Lemurs.

"Left foot, arc, right foot, arc," Yue called as the students tried to gain some semblance of coordination and dance properly. "Left foot, arc, right foot…yes, keep that rhythm!" With Yue calling out moves, the students started to slowly step in tandem. Their ribbon arcs were badly off-tempo, but they sorted out most of the holes in their circle and stepped in vague unison.

"Too bad we couldn't teach them any of the more complex dances," Karen commented to Anjilly as she watched the students. Every once in a while Karen would glance over to the Flamey-o's, trying to gauge how far along in their setup they were. It was taking some time.

"The sky…is plaid," Anjilly peered quizzically at her fingernails. "Why is the sky plaid?"

"Now all we need is the tea to come back," Karen tapped her foot. "Iroh was only able to stand teaching yesterday because he was on Bleeprin, and if you're anything to go by, I don't want him getting into long-term usage." She paused, and ran a hand over her hair, then dropped her arm to her side and looked up at the sky. "Seriously…bring the tea back. I need Anj functional. Running this place needs one and a half responsible people, and I barely qualify for half a responsible person."

"Talking to yourself is the first sign of madness," Anjilly informed the tablecloth.

"I'm well beyond the first signs, thank you," Karen said. "Ugh. You know, I didn't think bleeprin did this to people. Make them act high as kites, I mean. It's...what, bleach and aspirin? Neither of those things is a hallucinogen - wow, I'm pulling out the big words! - and don't you use this stuff when you go out on missions? You can't hunt down, charge, and assassinate Mary-Sues when you're this out of it...can you?"

"Some people can," Anjilly hummed, tearing the tablecloth into strips and braiding them together. "My friend Singsong is on a constant sugar high during her missions..."

"That's not hallucinating, though," said Karen. "Seriously, why is the bleeprin affecting you like this?"

Anjilly dropped her tablecloth braid and began methodically banging her head against the tabletop. "Probably because I'm using it to stay calm instead of to dull horrifying mental images from badfic. I am very stressed, I miss being able to kill the things that upset me, the plotholes are wreaking havoc, and I. Want. Tea." She collapsed on the table and rolled over on it. "Karen, why is there a rabbit running around the sky?"

Karen patted Anjilly's head. "Huh. Even when you're hallucinating, you manage to drag Chinese mythology into it...impressive. Alright." She squinted over at the Flamey-o's, and decided they were ready to start playing. She sucked in a deep breath, and bellowed, "OI, STUDENTS! RIBBON TOSS NOW!"

It took a second before the ribbons started to fly. Lupe looked around wildly, trying to figure out where Zuko was. The moment she saw him, she pulled her arm back as far as she could and lobbed the ribbon and stick in his direction. Every other Zukomancer had the same thoughts as Lupe, and Zuko found himself faced with an avalanche of ribbons. With no better ideas, he screwed his eyes shut, prayed to Bryke, and held his hand out.

When no ribbons hit Zuko, he cracked one eye to see what was going on. A red ribbon chose that moment to land in his palm, and he looked at the embroidered name with no little trepidation.

"Mai," he read, a rush of relief filling him. The fangirls' ribbons had all interfered with each other's flight, and they were in a mess on the ground before Zuko. Mai herself smirked and sauntered up to him.

"You doubted my aim?"

"Never," Zuko promised. "Thank you, thank you, thank you..."

"Yeah, well, I don't hate you enough to leave you with those little monsters..."

Sokka, meanwhile, rubbed his green ribbon embroidered with the name "Suki" against his cheek. On the ground before him was a pile of students' ribbons, which had crashed into each other and fallen before they could reach him. "Suki!" he shouted, looking around for her, and the Kyoshi Warrior tackled him in a hug. She chanced a glance toward Yue's direction, wondering if the Moon Spirit had thrown a ribbon at all.

"Oh, you two are adorable," Zerkz said, clasping his hands. "I was hoping I'd catch Suki's ribbon, but this is just adorable. This is perfect."

"Uh...thanks," Sokka said.

Zerkz burst into tears. "I LOVE YOU TWO!"

"Ignore him," Suki said to Sokka. "He's my fanboy. Um...what's going on with Aang?"

Aang was artfully airbending and dodging every single ribbon the Aanglers threw his way. There were shrieks of protest from the students, but he paid them no heed, focusing on his avoidant circling maneuvers. Finally, he reached his hand out, and with a flick of his wrist and a burst of air, a blue ribbon sailed towards him and landed in his outstretched palm.

"Katara!" Aang said happily, literally flying to her side.

The fangirls started to scream in protest, and several ran forward, intent on either glomping Zuko or knocking Mai's ribbon out of his hand. Several Zutarians tried to tackle Aang and wrestle away Katara's ribbon. All were attacked and dragged off by Lemurs. Their ribbons were picked up by more Lemurs, and some male guards had to leave the boys' circle.

"Boys who haven't caught a ribbon…oh look, that's all of you, big surprise, not like they threw the ribbons at Lust Objects or anything…boys, pick a ribbon up from the ground. You have no say in this. Wei Tzu, stop trying to look stoic and pick up a ribbon," Karen snapped at one of the more reticent students. "You too, Mr. Santos. Remember the 'you have no say in this' thing?"

"This is stupid," Isaac Santos muttered as he shuffled towards one of the ribbon piles. "I don't even like dancing."

"Get over it," a female guard punched him in the shoulder. "Maybe if you try to have fun, you'll actually have it. Don't make us _require_ it..."

"Where'd my ribbon go?" Lupe knelt by the pile in front of Zuko, trying to ignore the fact that he was cuddling with Mai a few meters away. She reached forward and shifted some of the ribbons around, trying to see if she could find her ribbon, but she couldn't even remember what the characters had looked like.

"You really have to ask?" Lauphen snorted and elbowed Lupe, then pointed. Lupe followed Lauphen's gaze to see what was probably her ribbon…

…in the hand of Marshall Arts.

"Totally didn't see that one coming," Somariel joked. "Really."

"Shut up," Lupe hissed, looking away from Marshall. He started to walk towards her, ribbon in his hand. Around them, students were pairing off, finding ribbons and dance partners. Toph's ribbon had been caught by Long Feng, and they were standing side by side awkwardly, neither willing to speak. Iroh and Aunt Wu were paired together, and though Iroh had taken Bleeprin only a few minutes before the ribbon dance started, he was managing to hold a decent conversation with Aunt Wu. Combustion Man found himself partnered with Chloe Cooksey, who was not amused at fate's little twist.

"Is this yours?" Marshall offered Lupe the ribbon in his hand, fighting and failing to keep from grinning. He held up the embroidered end of the red silk, and waggled it in the air. "Lü-pe…sounds like your name to me."

"It…probably is," Lupe admitted, crossing her arms and trying to look casual. She didn't have anything against dancing with Marshall, but then, she had no great desire to dance with anyone but Zuko. If she couldn't dance with Zuko…she didn't really want to dance at all.

Of course, Karen said she had to, which meant she would. Not that she had to like it.

People sorted out who was dancing with who, and the Flamey-o's plucked or blew a few notes to test out the acoustics. Karen went to chat with their pipa player, the equivalent of a Western band's guitar player, and held up a hand for silence.

"Prepare to dance with your partners, and keep out of the way of the guards," Karen ordered. "We're starting with a slow song, so enjoy the awkwardness of dancing with a near-stranger!"

"Err…I have a small problem," Marshall whispered as the Flamey-o's launched the opening notes of a song, and people around them started to figure out how to dance to it. "I have no idea how to dance."

"Isn't dance an art form?" Lupe panicked. She didn't know how to dance either—she'd never bothered to attend her school dances, since they were only for the jocks and cheerleaders and honor students.

"It is, but I don't know how you dance to this kind of music!" Marshall explained, voice urgent. "If you wanted an old Asian dance, I could do that, but that won't work for this sort of music!"

"Um…um…" Lupe paused, then threw up her hands in frustration. "Just put your arms around my waist and sway to the music!" She stepped into slow-dance range and wrapped her arms around Marshall's neck, looking over his shoulder at the happily slow dancing Zuko and Mai.

Marshall hesitated, but slid a hand around Lupe's waist and rested it in the small of her back. His other hand pressed against her upper back, and he shifted his weight from side to side in time with the song's beat. They got close enough that their chests were pressed against each other, and Marshall started to turn beet-red.

"I think I can do this," he murmured, speaking more to himself than anyone else.

Not far away, a little school drama was playing out. [-] had caught Lauphen's ribbon, and glared at Meep's partner. Meep's head rested on senor dangao pickle's shoulder, her eyes shut, and he looked to be keeping her upright mainly through upper body strength.

"Meep's asleep, isn't she?" Lauphen whispered.

"Yeah," [-] glared at senor dangao pickle, who appeared completely bored. "We have been awake and working all day."

"Well, at least she's got a partner who doesn't mind," Lauphen suggested. [-] growled in reply. Realizing any further attempts at conversation would be pointless, Lauphen sighed and tried to enjoy the dance.

"Pipa music really is the guitar of China, isn't it?" Sofia mused as she swayed to the music with Sunan.

"It really is," Sunan agreed. "There are some Chinese movies I think showcase the pipa's music best. We should look up clips on YouTube…er, if we ever get YouTube access here."

"Ooh, we need to look up House of Flying Daggers," Sofia's eyes started to sparkle. "It's got some beautiful examples of pipa music! And the costumes are very authentic."

Ishi Bananas and Freeranger weren't really talking, or touching. They stood closer to each other than they felt comfortable with, and were shifting their weight from side to side, slightly out of sync. Neither was willing to initiate physical contact or speak.

On the sidelines, Karen watched her handiwork with a smug look. A guard leaned over to her and asked, "Why aren't you dancing?"

"Because I have nobody to dance with," Karen smiled. "My boyfriend, Lucas Arch, is still at the International Academy of Hetalia Fanfiction. He's finishing up his third semester, and then he'll come work at OFUA:TLA as an aide for me and Anj. I'll be able to push off paperwork on someone who doesn't have an effective guilt-trip stare." Karen spared her partner a glance, and added, "Or is high on Bleeprin and can't do anything but stare vacantly into space."

"So, you're not dancing because your boyfriend couldn't come?" the guard tried to clarify. "You never know, maybe if you do that 'try to have fun thing' and dance with someone...like someone right next to you..."

"I am having fun. Look at the misery on their faces..." Karen gazed over the crowd of students, her smile widening.

"Oh." The guard - whose name, incidentally, was Lee - glanced away for a moment. "By the way, I heard a rumor from the main characters that you weren't originally going to be here tonight. Is that true?"

"Yup. I was hoping to attend the IAHF Mid-Autumn Festival tonight, but with Anj as she is…well, I'm going over for Christmas," Karen shrugged. "I'll see everyone then."

"What's Christmas?" Lee frowned in confusion.

"Just…never mind."

* * *

Lupe sat at one of the tables to the side of the dancing area, eyeing Zuko and Mai. They were doing one of the traditional Avatarverse dances Aang had been teaching people all night, and while Zuko had a tendency to step on Mai's toes, both looked to be having fun. This was not alright with Lupe. She kept hoping Katara and Aang would bump into Zuko and Mai, then switch partners. Admittedly, it would be a bit sad for Aang to have to dance with Mai, but if it got Katara and Zuko together…

Or, alternately, Zuko could ask Lupe to dance. Her fellow Zukomancers had similar hopes, and were occupying chairs around Lupe, resolutely not having fun and staring intently at Zuko. The Boomerang Babes, Aanglers, and other hardcore Lusters appeared to have similar sentiments.

Those who weren't sitting around watching Lust Objects were actually having fun. Meep hadn't had a break from dancing in an hour, going from partner to partner with each new song. Half the male students were waiting in line to dance with her, [-] amongst them. [-] actually kept getting shoved to the back of the line by the other students, and looked ready to murder someone.

"Don't you want to dance more?" Marshall, sitting across from Lupe, pressed.

"No."

"You want any food? There's a buffet of snacks—they have fire flakes!" Marshall gestured to some tables that had been converted into one long buffet by the guards.

"No."

Marshall rested his chin in his hand, wondering how to get Lupe to stop sulking. He couldn't see why she would rather sit around and watch other people have fun rather than have fun herself. "Last dance will be soon," he commented, glancing at the sky. The moon was getting higher, and was almost at the perfect position for viewing. Across the courtyard, a group of guards was setting out the low tables constructed by the students that morning, along with pillows and lanterns. More guards were wheeling carts laden with pitchers of juice and plates of mooncakes over to the low table area, for the students to claim once the dance ended and the moon-viewing began.

Lupe didn't hear Marshall's words, or notice the position of the moon. She was fixated on Zuko and Mai, hoping they stumbled, hoping Mai stepped on Zuko's toes, hoping a meteor from the sky shot down and miraculously only hit Mai and left Zuko completely uninjured and in need of comfort that Lupe would gladly provide…

Or Katara. Katara would be an acceptable source of comfort, too.

But, sadly, there was no stumbling or toe-stomping or miraculous meteorites. There was, however, a sudden shout from Karen.

"Alright students!" she shouted. "Time for the next phase of the festival!"

"And what would that be?"

"Moon-viewing," Karen pointed to the low tables set out on the other plaza. "Three students to a table. Try not to block anyone's view. Once everyone is settled at their tables, we'd like you to pick one person to get the mooncake platters, and one person to get the pitchers of juice, milk, and water. After that, you're free to stay or leave. As a word of advice, try not to stay out all night. We're depriving you of enough sleep as it is. Now find your partners, and get ready for the last dance."

"That's us," Marshall stood up. "Shall we?"

"All right," Lupe sighed. She patted her skirts as she got to her feet, eyes still fixed on Zuko. Marshall led her to the center of the plaza, and as the Flamey-o's started to play a slow song, the two started to sway to the music.

Marshall looked down at the top of Lupe's head as they danced. Her arms were locked around his neck, helping keep her upright - the dance had gone on for several hours by that point, and even without dancing, Lupe was tired. She leaned her head against Marshall's shoulder, taking advantage of his support to shut her eyes.

Meep, on the other hand, seemed to have gained energy as the night went on. Her and senor dangao pickle were doing a tango at three times the pace of the song's beat, weaving around their fellow students and managing not to collide with anyone. [-], who hadn't managed to dance with Meep at all, kept a steady glare on the back of senor dangao pickle's head as he rocked back and forth with Lauphen. Lauphen had noticed who [-] was watching, and had a frown set on her face.

"It's been so long since we danced together," Katara murmured to Aang as they performed tai chi-like moves a short distance from the students.

"I don't think we've danced since _The Headband_," Aang agreed. "It really is nice to dance with you. We should have Staff dances every week!"

"Maybe we could combine it with Music Night..." Zuko mused. "I'll have to ask Uncle. When he's feeling better." He cast a glance toward a far-off table, where a distressed, non-bleeprin-dosed Iroh was crying over the loss of the tea. Lu Ten sat beside him, patting his father's shoulder. "I'm sure he'd be all for it, though."

"Sounds like a plan to me!" Sokka called as he twirled Suki around. "Some of this music is actually pretty fun to dance to. I never knew I could express myself like this before now!"

"Just so long as the dances are optional," Mai cautioned. "I don't think I could stand doing this every week. Every once in a while, sure," she pressed herself closer to Zuko, "but every week would kill me. Ty Lee would probably love it."

"Yeah, she's really enthusiastic about this sort of thing," Aang recalled. "She made me dance with her earlier. I was too worn out for a dance-off with Young Bumi afterwards."

The music slowly wound to a close, and the students dispersed to the tables on the Pai Sho Plaza. None of the Staff joined the students: they had their own section set up on the tower in front of the school building, where guards had once supervised prisoners during yard time. Marshall waved good-bye to Lupe as he went, reminding her of their appointment the next afternoon. Meep, Lauphen, and [-] wound up at a table near the middle of the set-up, while Lupe, Allie Doyle, and William GP took a neighboring vantage point.

"Is it just me," Zerkz mused from the next table over, "or is the moon in the Avatarverse bigger than the moon in our world?"

"Beats me," Allie laughed.

"If I had to guess..." Sunan, sitting at Zerkz's table along with Sofia, leaned back and studied the moon, "it's maybe..."

"Don't ruin the peace and quiet," Lupe admonished. "Eat a mooncake and appreciate the night sky. I am." Part of her couldn't believe she was doing something so boring as staring up at the moon, but it was rather beautiful, and the cakes were delicious.

[-] and Meep were being unusually quiet over at their table, despite the efforts of Lauphen to strike up a conversation. "What do you think of the lychee juice?" Lauphen swished the liquid around in her cup. "It's really tasty."

"Mm," [-] nodded. His eyes kept sliding over to Meep, whose attention was fixed on the moon. [-] opened his mouth, then shut it again, at a loss for how to bring up what he wanted to say...or how to catch Meep's attention in the first place.

Lauphen poured a little more lychee juice into her cup, then added some milk, and sampled the result. She promptly spit it out. "Don't combine the juice and milk," she warned through coughs. "It doesn't taste like a lychee latte at all."

"Why would you try to make a lychee latte?" Meep tore her attention from the moon. "Is it good?"

"No, which is what I just found out," Lauphen covered her mouth as she let out a particularly magnificent hack. "Oh for the love of Zuko, why did I think that would be a good idea...?"

"Actually, Meep," [-] half-rose and placed his hand on Meep's wrist, "there's something I've been wanting to talk to you about."

"Yeah?" Meep looked over at him. "What is it?"

"I...well, you see..." [-] cleared his throat. "That is to say, would you...like to go out with me?"

"Aren't we already outside?" Meep blinked. Lupe, who was eavesdropping shamelessly with the rest of the other students, slapped her forehead.

"No, like a date," [-] desperately tried to clarify. "You know...romantic. If you want to."

"As in be your girlfriend?"

"Well...yeah," [-] smiled.

"Sure!" Meep laughed. She slipped her hand out of [-]'s grasp, then took his hand in hers. "When do you want to have the first date?"

"Really?" [-] brightened.

"Meep and [-], sitting in a tree," William snickered, "K-I-S-S - "

"Would you _please_ shut up and just watch the moon?" Karen shouted from the Staff tables. "Yeesh...oh, and have some mooncakes. They're delicious. So's the lychee juice. Just eat and drink and enjoy the prettiness, spirits-dangit!"

"Way ahead of you," Zerkz said, stuffing food in his mouth.

"Besides, you're lucky to even _have_ lychee juice," Karen added. "I was just gonna leave it at water, seeing as...uh...the traditional beverage is absent. But I figured water wouldn't cut it, so I decided to give you guys juice!"

"What's the traditional beverage?" William made the mistake of asking.

"TEA!" Iroh shouted from his table, and promptly burst into tears.

"Dad," Lu Ten said, "Dad, it's okay. We'll find the tea. And until then we have bleeprin, which you should really have some of right now. It'll be okay, I promise, it'll - Dad?" Iroh's sobs hadn't stopped. Lu Ten shot a glare toward William, who sank down in his seat. Angry glares from Fire Nation princes - even dead ones with little screen time and no directly important role in canon - were rather terrifying.

"OH!" said Karen suddenly, leaping up from her seat. "I completely forgot!"

"Forgot what?" Allie asked warily.

"The lanterns!" Karen said.

"...You mean the ones you had us make a couple hundred of?" Isabella Rose asked.

"Yes! Exactly!" Karen said, and then she cleared her throat. "Guards...release the kraken!"

Silence.

"Sorry, sorry, always wanted to say that," Karen said. She cleared her throat again. "Guards, release the lanterns!"

A few seconds passed. Nothing happened.

"Guards?" Karen asked. "Hey, Captain Lee, what's the hold up?"

"We need to _light them_ first," a guard - Captain Lee, apparently - grumbled. He had a paper lantern in one hand and a flame in the other.

"You're _burning_ them?" Isabella Rose shrieked. "I spent hours making those!"

"Not burning them, silly," Karen said, lobbing a snickerdoodle at the student and hitting her square in the forehead. "Just watch."

The students watched. Captain Lee and his men carefully lit the center of the paper lanterns they held. And then...they released them.

The lanterns floated gracefully through the air, gliding upwards into the night sky.

There were strangled shrieks and surprised squeaks and outright gasps from the students. "IT'S JUST LIKE TANGLED!" someone shouted.

"Hey, Firebender students," Karen said, "why don't you go help with those lanterns? There's an awful lot of them, and even if you're technically not allowed to work with fire yet, I'm sure Jeong Jeong will understand if we make an exception tonight."

The Firebender students were all too happy to comply, and before long the sky was filled with floating lanterns that bobbed on the air currents and cast their light on the moongazers below.

"Oooh," Amy Ochanian sighed. "It's so romantic!"

She wasn't the only one who thought so. Somariel was advancing on Zuko, one hand on her chest, the other stretched out imploringly toward the Fire Prince. She was singing very badly. "_And at last I seeeeee the liiiiiiiight! And it's liiiiiike the fog has lifted! And at laaaaast I seeee the liiiiight! And it's liiiiiike the skyyyyy is neeeeeeeew!_"

Zuko was backing away from the student, eyeing her like she was some sort of deranged animal. He edged around, trying to get behind Mai, who had a knife in her hand and a sour expression on her face.

Somariel was saved from flying sharp pointy metal, however, by a random mooncake that came out of nowhere and hit her right in the stomach and sent her to the floor.

"Nice aim, Anj!" Karen cheered. "Mooncakes are kinda soft, though. You could've had her out like a light if that'd been a cookie!"

Anjilly paid no attention to her partner; she'd stomped over to Somariel and was glaring down at the student where she laid on the floor.

Somariel blinked up at Anjilly, attempting to look innocent. "Um...hi?"

Anjilly reached into her robes. Somariel flinched. Anjilly pulled out a small, strange device that had a cell phone-like vibe to it, despite looking like it'd come right out of Star Wars. "Rapunzel and Eugene called," she said, tossing the device down to Somariel. "They want their song back."

Somariel huffed. "I was just - "

"No, seriously, they called," Anjilly said, with a pointed look at the phone thing. Somariel blinked before picking it up and holding it to her ear.

"Hello? OH MY GOD. Is this - are you really - you _are_? I - oh my god, I can't believe - yes, yes I was singing your song just now - um - well, I - okay - yes - okay - right. I'm sorry. It won't happen again. Yes. Goodbye." Somariel handed the device back to Anjilly. "Um...sorry?"

"I was in the Department of Mary-Sues," Anjilly grumbled, snatching her phone-thing back and tucking it into her robes. "I wasn't trained for bad crossovers...ugh. I need bleeprin." She pulled out the bottle and frowned. "Empty. Of course. Karen, I'm going to get a refill." So saying, she stomped inside, toward the Staff section.

"Sure thing, Anj," Karen called after her. "NOW ALL OF YOU SHUT UP AND WATCH THE FREAKING MOON! Seriously, it's beautiful!"

"Yeah!" said Sokka. "Stop ignoring Yue!"

Suki and Yue both shot him suspicious glances.

"...What?" he asked.

"It really is a beautiful moon tonight," Aang said quickly, playing peacekeeper. "Great job, Yue."

"Thank you, Aang," Yue smiled at him, looking up at the moon. "I got some help from Tui - La? Whichever one it is. We made sure it was extra bright for tonight." She patted the fishbowl that sat next to her, in which the two koi fish swam serenely.

"It looks great," Aang said.

"I'll take your word for it, Twinkletoes," Toph shrugged. "I'm just here for the food." She chomped on a mooncake.

"It _feels_ amazing, too," Katara said, gazing up at the sky. "Hey, Aang, would you like to go waterbending later tonight?"

"Just the two of us?" he asked.

"Of course!"

"Sounds great! It's a date!"

A few Zutarans made gagging noises and were promptly ignored. Upset at being ignored, they gagged a little harder. Karen sighed and reached for a cookie, but before she could throw it, there was a sudden, piercing scream.

The students and staff alike jumped.

"What the heck - ?" Karen said.

"What was _that_?" Lupe yelped.

Aang flew up to perch on a tall post that held up a banner. "Everyone, stay calm," he ordered, but before he could continue there was another, louder scream. The next second, Anjilly came running into the plaza. "KAREN! KAREN KAREN KAREN KAREN!"

"Wha - OOF!" Karen said as Anjilly barreled into her.

"Karen," Anjilly said, "Karenit'sgoneit'sgoneit'sgoneIcan'tfinditit'sgone - "

"Anj, I can't believe I'm saying this, but _calm down_," Karen ordered. "What's gone?"

"THE BLEEPRIN!"

There was a moment of horrified silence.

"Oh, Spirits," Karen said.

"But that's the only thing that was keeping my father sane!" Lu Ten shouted, leaping to his feet. "What happened to it?"

"I don't _know_," Anjilly wailed. "I went to my stash and it was _gone_...just like the _tea_..."

Iroh burst into sobs at the mention of tea. Zuko hurried to his uncle's side and put his hands on the older man's shoulders. "Uncle, it'll be okay..."

"I'm just going to curl up here and cry _forever_," Anjilly said, and she proceeded to do just that.

Karen watched her partner sobbing on the floor before clearing her throat. "Okay, everyone, just _remain calm_. I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation, and we'll be able to - "

"Of course there's an explanation!" someone shouted, and Jet pushed his way to Karen's side. "CLEARLY, THE FIRE NATION STOLE THE BLEEPRIN!"

"What?" Ozai, Azulon, and Sozin asked.

"It's totally obvious!" Jet shouted, pointing an accusing finger at the Fire Lords. "You just _love_ watching the world descend into chaos! And it's probably part of your evil plan to take over OFUA:TLA! It makes perfect sense!"

"Jet, that makes no sense!" Zuko snapped. "My uncle needs that bleeprin!"

"That's what you _claim_," Jet sneered. "A clever ploy, Fire Nation, but I see right through it! You can't trick me!" He brought up his hook swords and held them at the ready.

"Oh, for the love of - " Zuko started, but he pulled out his twin dao swords. Beside him, Mai had a dagger ready, and Sokka hefted Space Sword.

"Guys," Aang said, "please, calm down. I'm sure there's a reasonable - "

"There _is_ no reason when it comes to the Fire Nation!" Jet shouted, and he attacked.

"Ooh, hot boys fighting," Andy Roseanne giggled. The other students shared her opinion for about three seconds before realizing that a maniac with swords was wreaking havoc in the plaza and getting attacked by other people with weapons and fire at their disposal.

"Guess the festival's over!" Zerkz shouted.

"RUN!" [-] said, dragging Meep away.

"NO! THE MOONCAKES!" Aang Took shrieked as a whole platter was obliterated by a fire blast.

The plaza descended into chaos. Students ran for cover while the characters fought. Fire and knives flew, swords clanged. Then there was even more fire, then - the Fire Lords had apparently taken Jet's accusation personally and were out to get him. A few moments later water, air, and earth joined the fight as Katara, Aang, and Toph came to help out.

"Jet!" Aang shouted. "Seriously! Calm down!"

"You'll never take me alive, Fire Nation!" Jet cried, dodging a fire blast from Ozai. "Return the bleeprin, you cowards!"

"We didn't _take_ the bleeprin!" Azulon shouted.

"Lies!" Jet dodged Zuko's swords. "Everyone knows you're a bunch of lying bastards!"

"Insolent peasant!" Sozin cried, shooting fire.

"Jet!" Katara shouted, trying to grab him with a water whip and failing miserably when it evaporated in Sozin's flames. "You need to calm down and shut up!"

"You need to get your priorities straight, Katara!" Jet was putting up a valiant fight, but he was starting to lose against so many. "The Fire Nation killed your mother, remember? Whose side are you on?"

"The _sane_ side! Which doesn't include you _or_ the Fire Lords - "

"How _dare_ you call us insane?" Ozai demanded, turning his attention - and aim - from Jet to Katara. She shrieked as the flames flew toward her - only to be stopped at the last second by a wall of earth that rose up suddenly in front of her.

"Thanks, Toph!"

"No problem, Sweetness!" Toph shoved the earth wall toward Ozai before turning towards Jet. "And you _really_ need to shut up, Captain Hooks."

"You'll never silence me!" Jet screamed, brandishing his hook swords. "Never - !"

"ENOUGH!" someone shouted, and there was a rumble of earth as Jet sank down to his neck in the ground.

Everyone turned to find Long Feng, who regarded them all with a scowl.

"Um," said Sokka after an awkward moment. "Thanks?"

"I'm always happy to help maintain peace and order," Long Feng said dryly.

"You'll never silence me!" Jet shouted again. "Nev - mmph!" A stone glove flew out of nowhere and clamped over Jet's mouth, effectively gagging him.

"Whew!" said Karen. "Everyone okay? No more trying to kill each other? We're good?"

"The _mooncakes_!" Aang Took sobbed, clutching an armful of burnt pastries to his chest. The Fire Lords attempted to look innocent.

"Truly, a tragic loss," Karen said. "No delicious dessert thing should have to suffer such a fate... But it could've been worse! I mean, it's a good thing we had Zhao and Hama locked up. I dread to think what that fight would've turned into had they been free - wait." Karen looked around, frowning. "We didn't lock Azula up, and she wasn't part of this. I thought she was coming to the moon-viewing, but I don't see her. Where's - "

There was a sudden explosion from the Staff section. Karen paled.

"I'm just...going to take Tui and La and go...do spirit stuff," Yue said. She snatched up the fishbowl and floated away into the sky.

"Maybe that wasn't Zhao," Sokka said, trying to stay positive. "Or Azula. Maybe that was...um...Kuzon? Chit Sang? Any of the million Lees?"

"Yeah," Aang said. "Yeah, that could've been _anybody_. Right?"

"And even if that _is_ Zhao," Toph said, "Hama could probably give him a run for his money, right?"

"Yes! Of course!" Sokka said, waving his hands excitedly. "Azula, too. They wouldn't stand a chance against bloodbending! We'll just let the bad guys take care of each other. Problem solved!"

"Unless they go and destroy the entire school while they're 'taking care of each other,'" Mai said. "My uncle wouldn't be happy if his precious prison was demolished, you know."

There was a moment of silence.

Finally, Long Feng rolled his eyes. "_I'll_ go deal with it, since none of you are going to. Let the bad guys take care of each other, indeed." With a huff, he stepped over Jet's head - the Freedom Fighter was still snarling angrily - and headed inside, towards the explosion. A few Dai Li agents materialized out of the darkness and followed him.

"Well, glad that's taken care of!" Sokka grinned. "So, Karen, about the bleeprin - Karen?"

"Anj? Anj, it's okay, you'll get through this." Karen was kneeling next to her fellow Course Coordinator, one hand on her shoulder. "There's no need to lie here and cry forever. Please. I need you functioning. Who will I push all the work onto if you're not around? Anj? Anjilly? Are you breathing?"

"Shut up and go away, person-without-Bleeprin-or-tea," Anjilly sobbed. She threw an arm over her face and started to shake. "Let me lay here and tearbend."

"What?" Karen recoiled. "Did Anjilly...did she just...did she use improper grammar?" She whirled around to look at the assembled canon characters. "DID SHE JUST SAY 'LAY' INSTEAD OF 'LIE'?"

"I think...she did," Ty Lee said, eyes wide.

"NOOOOOOO!" Now Karen started to cry. "My poor, poor Anj! Don't worry, I'll go straight to PPC HQ and get you some more!" She pulled a weird remote control-like thing out of her pocket. "Once I remember how to use this, that is... Anj, how do I set continuum coordinates?"

Anjilly just sobbed.

"Please tell me you're not thinking of leaving us alone with the students," Mai shot a narrow-eyed glare at the cowering teenagers amidst the wreckage of the tables. Ashee Bieber and Danish were bawling about how their dress uniforms had been ruined, but they were also casting the occasional glance toward the Staff.

"Well...we need Anj functional if the school's going to keep going," Karen pointed out. "You guys can't read English, and I have no one else to shove paperwork onto. Not to worry, I'll just pop over, find someone who's willing to part with their bleeprin, and come right back. And...maybe I'll check in with the Flowers That Be to see if they think I'm gonna be agent material by the end of the school year while I'm at it. Don't worry, I'll be back before you know it. It's not like there's gonna be any random distractions to keep me from being helpful."

Right on cue, a weird, electronic noise rang from Karen's pocket. She blinked at the characters. They blinked right back at her.

"Isn't this what the PPC's Legal Department calls the Law of Dramatic Irony?" Aang asked.

"It is," Sokka sighed. "Trust me; I'm very familiar with it."

Karen pulled a normal cell phone out of her pocket. "Sorry guys," she said, "I've got to take this." She answered the call. "Hey Lucas, I thought you weren't allowed to use phones at IAHF? How's your guys' Mid-Autumn Festival go - WHAT?"

"What?" Sokka asked warily. Karen threw a cookie at him and listened intently to whoever was on the other end of her call. After a minute, she ended the call and replaced her phone.

"There's been an incident at IAHF. A roomful of students and staff just disappeared," Karen announced. "Something weird is going on there. They need help."

"Karen, I swear to Aang, if you leave - " Sokka began.

"My boyfriend and little sister attend IAHF," Karen said. "Lucas might be in trouble. My sister might be in trouble!"

"But what about us?" Sokka cried in dismay. "You're just going to leave us alone here with the students? And the bad guys running amuck?" As though to prove his point, there was an explosion from the other side of the school. "And what about Anjilly?" He pointed at the PPC agent, who was curled up and practically comatose on the floor.

Karen hesitated. Half of her wanted to run to her boyfriend's side and make whatever was wrong right again. The rest of her wanted to stay and take care of OFUA:TLA, the fledgling school she and Anjilly had only just begun to build.

She looked around. There were only canons and misspellings assembled now - the students had all headed into their dorms. Sokka and Zuko looked angry and worried. Toph was waiting and listening. Mai was expressionless, as usual. Aang and Katara looked anxious, but determined. Aang Took was still crying over the ruined mooncakes, but Marshall Arts looked rather serious.

"You guys have each other," Karen said slowly. "You're an amazing cast of characters, you know that? You're deep and developed and three-dimensional. You can handle anything the students can throw at you. At least for a few days. I know you can."

"Karen," Sokka said.

Her hands fumbled with the remote activator she still held. All she had to do was enter the coordinates and hit the button, right? "Make sure Anj gets to bed. She's pretty sane for a PPC agent. She'll be able to hold it together once she's had some sleep."

"Karen - " Sokka said again.

She punched a series of numbers on the remote. "Just work together and you'll be fine." She hit the biggest button, and a portal burst into existence.

"KAREN - !"

"Sorry," Karen said. "Love trumps duty." And before anyone could stop her, she took a running jump.

* * *

**Questionnaire:**

**1. What do you think of the new series? What were your thoughts when it first started? How did they change by the end?**

**2. Who, in your opinion, is the most Sue or Stu-like character in Avatar?**

**3. Why do you believe that character is a Sue/Stu?**

**4. Would you like to see romantic relationships develop amongst the students? Would you like your character to develop a romantic relationship with anyone? If so, who and why? **

**5. Which type of cookie do you prefer: chocolate chip or peanut butter?**

**Please include the name of your student character and their Nation.**


	16. Of Breakdowns and Odd Earthquakes

**Applications are no longer being accepted. Avatar: The Last Airbender belongs to the lovely Creators and Nickelodeon. Dear Aang, this took longer than it should have…**

* * *

On the Tuesday after the Mid-Autumn Festival, the school was still abuzz with the news of what had happened. The bleeprin was gone! Anjilly had been seen storming about in a tea- and bleeprin-less rage, while Karen had been conspicuously absent. Nobody knew if they should ask the Staff where Karen had gone—given Anjilly's mood, many of the students suspected her involvement in Karen's disappearance.

In other news, [-] and Meep, the first big couple in the school, had taken to spending their time out of class in the courtyard together, either studying or talking. Lauphen's mood had taken a turn downwards, to the delight of the school's gossip-mongers, while bets started to be placed on whether or not anyone else in the school would start dating.

Sitting in Spirit World 101, Zerkz was absently drawing very bad renditions of Suki on his notetaking-scroll and waiting for Sunan to arrive. All around the auditorium, the sound of fangirls giggling over the latest news of their Lust Objects or debating how to go about stalking said Lust Objects drowned out the few serious conversations being had. Wei Tzu and Isaac Santos, sitting in the row in front of Zerkz, raised their voices to hear each other, letting Zerkz catch every word.

"Do you really think we're going to have a weapons final?" Wei Tzu scratched his head, voice doubtful. He had his metal gauntlets and greavers on over his uniform—come to think of it, Zerkz had never seen him without them. It must be a pain to walk around with so much extra weight on your limbs. Sure enough, Wei Tzu dropped his arm back to his side, wincing from the strain of lifting it.

"I asked Bumi about finals after our Earth Kingdom Fighters class yesterday," Isaac replied. "He said that finals would be during the last week of the semester. There are fifteen weeks in the semester, and if you take out the last one, that gives you fourteen weeks of classes."

"We're in week seven now," Wei Tzu mentally calculated, "so we have seven weeks left after this. But what I mean is, do you think we'll have a weapons final this semester? Aren't there going to be three semesters total?"

"If they have a weapons final every semester, they can measure our progress, can't they?" Isaac pointed out. "You're not getting the point, though. We're halfway done with this semester already. We've got to be the best in our weapons finals! That'll totally impress our Lust Objects!"

Wei Tzu was silent for a moment. "I…wouldn't mind impressing Iroh…" he admitted, a blush slowly spreading over his face. Isaac chuckled.

"And you just know Toph'll fall for the toughest guy in the class," Isaac bragged. "We're even the same age, so it won't be weird or anything…unlike if Nathan Hofstad got together with Ty Lee. He's twice her age!"

"Still, I can sort of see why he'd like her," Wei Tzu tapped his chin thoughtfully. "She's got a great figure, and she's really flexible…"

"Dude. Ew."

Zerkz leaned forward and tapped Isaac and Wei Tzu on the shoulder, getting their attention. "Everyone can hear you," he whispered to them. "They all fell silent when the teachers got to the stage."

Sure enough, the class had fallen silent, the teachers and guest speaker on the stage looking at the two talking students in the seating section. Yue and Aunt Wu were tapping their feet, with matching frowns on their faces, eyes fixed on Isaac and Wei Tzu.

"I…uh…didn't see you guys there," Isaac chuckled. Yue and Wu's frowns deepened. "Yeah…shutting up now."

"Thank you," Yue nodded to him. "Now students, today's class will cover the subject of prophecies and how you can portray them properly. Aunt Wu, I give you the floor."

"How kind of you, my dear," Aunt Wu turned to face the students, a smile on her face. "We will discuss the aspects of prophecy today: medium, form, and message. Now, before I talk about prophecies, who can give me some examples of prophecies from the Real World?"

"The Oracle of Delphi!" Ai Da called immediately, half-rising in her seat.

"Oh, a wonderful example!" Aunt Wu beamed, then paused. "Er…Yue, do you know what the Oracle of Delphi is?"

"Give me a moment…" Yue reached into thin air, her hand momentarily disappearing, and pulled it back, now holding an iPad—or, it looked like an iPad. Considering the fact that Yue shouldn't know what iPads were, or how to operate one, the fact that she started tapping away at the screen like she did it every day came as a surprise to the students. After a moment, she stopped tapping. "According to Google…it's from some place called Greece. A priestess…in a cave…hallucinogenic smoke…gives prophecies."

"This 'Oracle of Delphi' is a priestess sitting in a cave, breathing hallucinogenic smoke?" Aunt Wu raised an eyebrow belligerently. "Oh my…that certainly sounds safe."

Yue shrugged. "Humans."

"You used to be human!" Nicole Jackson shouted.

"I still am human," Aunt Wu commented offhandedly. Yue blinked, and smiled apologetically.

"No offense to present company," she covered for herself quickly. Hei Bai grunted. "Quiet, you. Not helping."

"Well, this 'Oracle of Delphi' sounds like a perfect example of traditional prophets," Aunt Wu returned her attention to the class. "Prophecy is always made through a medium of some kind. That medium is usually a person, the prophet that reports the prophecy. Sometimes you will find prophecies written on paper, or carved into stone or some form of monument, with no clear medium in the picture. These cases are usually due to the original prophet being long dead, along with their civilization."

"Like the Sun Warriors?" Blue Witten suggested.

"Similar to that, but their civilization _is_ still alive," Aunt Wu clasped her hands in front of her. "In any case, prophecies found carved or written onto some form of lasting relic typically still have a prophet, but you won't have much hope of meeting them. That more or less covers the mediums of prophecy. Shall we move on to form?"

"By form, she means the way the prophecy is originally delivered to the prophet," Yue clarified.

"The most typical methods of a prophecy being delivered are visions, dreams, and divine

revelation," Wu continued. "Visions are a series of images with either obvious or symbolic meaning, usually striking while a prophet is in a trance. They may also be auditory in nature. Dreams are similar to visions, only they occur when the receiver is asleep. Divine revelation is when a divine or spiritual being appears to the receiver and directly gives them the prophecy."

"Keep in mind that when the form is divine revelation, the prophet that receives the message is usually very devout, or a member of the priesthood," Yue added. "Not that the Four Nations have a defined priesthood…I think the closest we have are the Fire Sages. They're the only spiritual group you really get to see in the series. No one ever mentions what the equivalent is in the Water Tribes - presumably we have something similar, though, like shamans or some such. Oyaji mentioned that Kyoshi Island has clerics, so it's possible that the rest of the Earth Kingdom has them, too. There's also those nuns who took in Bato."

"And don't forget the Air Nomads," Wu sighed. "They were very spiritual, as a rule. It's why all of them were Airbenders, and why many - if not all - of them were nuns or monks." She paused. "It was never very clear whether they _all_ were or only some of them were...I do wish the show had explored their culture a bit more."

Hei Bai grunted. "Yes, but we're not sure," Yue reminded him. "There's no telling if they really did have a monastic majority or not."

"Maybe we'll get to hear more about it in the new series," Sunan mused. "Sofia would probably like that."

Zerkz jumped in his seat. "When did you get here?!"

"Just now."

"_How_?"

Sunan shrugged. "Think it was one of those plothole things."

"Hold the phone!" Daniel Hallowell held up his hand. "What do you mean, all the Air Nomads were benders? Wouldn't they have had non-benders, who had towns, farms, all that?"

"According to the creators, no," Yue shook her head. "A Nation's level of spirituality directly affects how many benders it has. For the other three Nations, the bending population is a small percentage of the entire population. Because the Air Nomads were so steeped in spirituality, they were all born as Airbenders."

"What if they married someone from another Nation?" Elise. No last name. called.

"Then their children could be benders of either element, or non-benders," Yue shrugged. "The first known example is Aang and Katara's children. But you'll learn more about the other Nations next semester, and this class is supposed to be about spirits and the spirit world. Aunt Wu, please continue?"

"Of course," Aunt Wu clapped her hands. "Now, where were we…ah yes, form. In Real World China, prophecies are traditionally derived from dreams, revealed in ecstatic trances, brought from overseas, or discovered in excavated inscriptions. You'll note the 'ecstatic trance' method—humans have used plants and psychedelics to induce trances since prehistory, and prophets may induce a trance in order to be more receptive to visions."

"People drugged up to have visions?" Ashee Bieber giggled. "Soo, if I wanna have a vision, all I have to do is go smoke something?"

"In essence, yes," Aunt Wu raised an eyebrow. "Considering your age, I really hope you never attempt that. Also keep in mind that a miscalculation of how much of the drug you need to enter a proper trance could result in your death."

"Karen and Anjilly would rather have drugs stay out of the school," Yue piped up. "It's just bad press if our students are getting high while they should be learning."

"But it isn't if we're getting _killed_ while we're learning?" Ashee Bieber grumbled.

"Death's pretty easy to fix when you know how to manipulate reality," Yue shrugged. "Also, students probably wouldn't get killed so much if you weren't all obsessed with harassing Mai or attacking Ozai in an effort to make him see the error of his ways."

"Wait, backing up," Nicole Jackson said. "Karen and Anjilly don't let any drugs in the school? What about cactus juice?"

"Oh La," Yue groaned. "No, no cactus juice allowed. That rule is strictly enforced."

"But - but I _really wanted_ to try - "

"_No_."

"Let's think about our final aspect of prophecies, message," Aunt Wu urged the discussion back on track. "Prophecies are typically foretellings of future events. They may be delivered in rhyme, in some kind of poetic meter, or as simple statements of what will happen. Symbolism is rampant in prophecies, but the exact symbolic meanings depend on the culture you find yourself in."

"Some prophecies also recount past events, either as they relate to future events, or because it's important to know about those past events," Yue added.

"And with that, let's look at some examples of prophecies," Aunt Wu snapped her fingers, and a white sheet unfurled from the ceiling. The lights in the Hall dimmed, and Zerkz settled back in his seat, already working on a new drawing of Suki.

* * *

The next day, class opened with a bang. Literally. Basic Canon was just starting to wind down when something behind the stage exploded. Pakku and Gyatso were almost thrown offstage by the blast, Gran-Gran fell to her knees, Bumi laughed, and Jeong Jeong—there to replace the tea-deprived Iroh—stumbled into Bumi. Smoke poured into the Hall as Anjilly emerged, singed and coughing.

"What happened?" Gran-Gran gasped as she pushed herself up to her feet. Anjilly tried to answer, but gagged on the smoke.

"Were you playing with explosives?" Bumi—who had somehow not moved an inch—sniggered.

"No, I—" Anjilly hacked, "—I was, my ex-partner, I called him, asked about getting more tea or Bleeprin, and…and…" Anjilly sniffed. "He…he sent me a bomb."

"Oh!" Gran-Gran covered her mouth. "That rascal!"

"Did you two part on bad terms?" Gyatso inquired.

"No, that's not it. And things were civil when I left the PPC." Anjilly brushed some soot off her ruined green overrobe. "He just loves his explosives. Is anyone hurt?"

"No, we're fine," Gyatso assured her. "A little smoke never hurt anyone."

"Unless it gets in your lungs and kills you," Jeong Jeong muttered. "Firebending is such a curse…"

"We just finished, so I suppose you can take over," Gran-Gran told Anjilly. "The projector doesn't look damaged, and we have a backup screen. One of Karen's better ideas, that." Still smoking, the old screen broke in half and crashed onto the stage. Pakku bended some water out of his waterskin and used it to clean the charred mess out of the way. "Do you want one of us to stay with you?"

"I'll be fine. I recruited the Silver Sand Witch to help." Anjilly gestured someone offstage forward. A swirl of silver sand floated onstage, born on unseen wind currents that didn't so much as ruffle a hair on anyone else. The outline of a woman in a qipao took form in the middle of the sand.

"Where have you been the last month?" Bumi narrowed his eyes.

Learning how to move around without having an Airbender make a wind for me, the Silver Sand Witch replied. I wasn't doing much before anyways. And I've been in anger management therapy, though that's on hold now Iroh's in tea withdrawal.

"Poor guy." Gyatso shook his head.

"What do you know about creating original characters?" Pakku asked. He finished cleaning the burnt screen off stage and put his water back in its pouch. "Aside from being one yourself, I mean."

I don't know the first thing about creating original characters. I'm here for moral support. The Silver Sand Witch glanced at Anjilly. She's taking the absence of the tea and Bleeprin badly. Too late, the Silver Sand Witch realized what she had said. No! Please don't—

"Teeeeeeea!" Anjilly wailed. She collapsed against the nearest person—Pakku—and started to sob. Pakku's eyes widened in alarm. The Silver Sand Witch looked as abashed as a floating mass of sand could get.

Oops.

Ten minutes later, when Anjilly had been consoled and the new screen brought out, Creating Your Characters began. The Silver Sand Witch stayed off to one side of the stage, eyes fixed on Anjilly. Or, well…her head was turned in Anjilly's direction, and there was an implied intensity in the way she stood.

"All right, class," Anjilly faced the students. "Today's lecture is about handling common traits of Mary Sues in a believable manner."

"Zzzzz…"

The students, ignored up til now, had taken advantage of the delay to fall asleep. Anjilly frowned. This was not acceptable behavior from the victims—students. Yes, students, they were students, totally students. Now, Anjilly could just yell and trust the Hall's acoustics to amplify the sound. But she was still experiencing withdrawals, and if she was suffering, it only made sense to add a little suffering to the lives of the victi—students. So Anjilly reached her hand into a plothole and pulled out a long, wooden pipe. She took a deep breath and blew into it.

_Awooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo._

"GYAH!" The students jerked awake, some flailing, some falling off their chairs, and some shrinking back.

"Nice to have you all with us," Anjilly rolled her eyes. The didgeridoo vanished from her hand.

"Ugh, that was annoying," ihaznoideawuttowrite said. "Wait. Is that another thing Mai4 turns into?"

"No. She's still missing. And be grateful I didn't use the vuvuzela," Anjilly snapped. "As I said before, while everyone was asleep, today's lecture is about how to handle some common Mary Sue traits properly when creating an original character."

"You can do that?" Noelle Collins shouted.

"In some cases, yes," Anjilly nodded. "The characters have to be handled properly for it to work. Some people will argue that the traits themselves are enough to make 'Sues or 'Stus, but that's just not the case."

"So how do you do it?" Emma called.

"I'm about to tell you." Anjilly pulled the clicker out of her still-smoking, ruined overcoat - who sends a bomb to someone who asked for tea or bleeprin, seriously? - and turned the projector on. The screen lit up with the first slide, which read, "Suvian Traits And How To Handle Them." Around the hall, lights dimmed.

"Let's start with an example." Anjilly began to pace in front of the screen. "Let's say we have, hypothetically, a character who, at a young age, saw both of their parents murdered before their very eyes. This character then inherits a vast fortune, a business empire, and an extremely high place in society. The character goes on to acquire amazing physical combat skills, becoming a top-notch fighter capable of defeating any bad guy who dares to challenge them or harm innocents. On top of that, the character is an utter genius who uses their intellect to create nifty gadgets and other inventions, and also incredibly good looking, leading to quite a few romantic interests. So there we have it: Hot rich genius superfighter with a horribly tragic past. What do you think?"

"It's a 'Sue!" Meep screamed. Everyone within five seats of her winced and clapped their hands over their ears.

"Really now? That character," the slides changed, "is Batman." Christian Bale stared at the students from the screen. "He is one of the best examples of how to handle multiple 'Sue traits right. Please keep in mind that most of these traits themselves aren't what make a 'Sue, but rather traits most commonly found with 'Sues."

"Then how do you make a 'Sue?" Craig asked.

"Haven't we been over this? Bad writing makes a 'Sue." Anjilly pointed to the screen and changed the slides. A list of Batman's traits appeared. "Now, when these traits are taken out of context, Batman—or Bruce Wayne, if you prefer—does appear to be a 'Sue - well, 'Stu, rather. In context, however—"

"Batman is awesome!" Daniel Clemens stood up.

"Oh my gosh, I know!" Shiri cheered. "Have you seen the _Nolan movies_?!"

"I have! They're awesome!" Daniel grinned. "They oughta make a third!"

"Shush, all of you!" Anjilly frowned. "I'm sure Mr. Nolan is working diligently on a third movie. Can we return to the subject, or would anyone else like to gush about the Nolanverse Batman movies? And Daniel Clemens, please sit down."

"The Nolan movies are _AWESOME_!" Isaac Santos popped up. Anjilly threw a teapot at his head. "Ow!"

"I'm an addict in withdrawal," Anjilly warned, "and didgeridoos aren't the only leaf I've taken from Karen's book. Leaf…tea leaves…tea…" The Silver Sand Witch was at Anjilly's side before the sentence was done.

There, there, the Silver Sand Witch patted Anjilly's shoulder with a sand-outlined hand. You'll get through this. The tea will come back.

"No, it won't," Anjilly sniffled. "You've been helping with the supply shipments. You know about the sudden, inexplicable tea shortage across the Avatarverse. The tea will never come back!"

Then the Bleeprin, the Silver Sand Witch stroked Anjilly's hair. The PPC will send more Bleeprin.

"That's what I called Brenden about!" Anjilly wailed. "And he sent me a bomb! A _bomb_!"

Anjilly, I'm sure he didn't mean to hurt you…

"What? No, of course he didn't," Anjilly sniffed again. "He thought it would cheer me up."

He…what?

"Brenden likes explosives," Anjilly explained. "And…and now all I can think of is gunpowder tea!" She burst into tears.

Oh dear. The Silver Sand Witch sounded overwhelmed. Anjilly, the class…you have to finish the class first…please?

"Why? What's the point of anything, without tea?" Anjilly sobbed. "Or Bleeprin? Or Bleeproducts? Why haven't I just curled up and withered—"

You are NOT drying up like some unwatered plant on me! The Silver Sand Witch slapped Anjilly. The sound rang through the Hall—a curious thing, since the Silver Sand Witch didn't appear to have any physically substantial parts, just an outline of her body inside a mass of moving sand. Hear me?! I WILL NOT tolerate any more of that kind of talk! You're an ex-PPC agent, start acting like one!

Anjilly sniffled. "Considering that most ex-PPC agents are ex-agents because they went off the deep end, you _really_ don't want me to do that."

"Meaning she _hasn't_ gone off the deep end yet?" Lauphen squeaked.

"Considering what we have seen of PPC agents," Sofia whispered back, "they seem to be crazy by default."

"Yeah. Her ex sent her a bomb because he thought it'd cheer her up, and she saw _nothing weird about that_," Lupe pointed out.

"Indeed," said Sofia. "I believe that one of them 'going off the deep end' would be a bit more...explosive."

"More explosive than a _bomb_?" Lauphen hissed.

On the stage, the Silver Sand Witch was dragging Anjilly to her senses. Pull yourself together, Agent Ka!

"Right," Anjilly said, gingerly touching her cheek. "Right, right, okay. Just...stay firm with me, alright?"

The Silver Sand Witch blinked. Firm? she repeated.

"Yes, firm," Anjilly said. "It'll help me focus."

Firrrrrrrm, the Silver Sand Witch said again, rolling the word over her sandy tongue.

"Yes," said Anjilly. "Firm. No nonsense. Don't let me get sidetracked, distracted, or depressed, please. Just keep me going to the end of this.

Hmm, the Silver Sand Witch said. Alright. I can be firm.

"Great," sighed Anjilly. "So, where were - "

Agent Ka, you will finish this lecture! the Silver Sand Witch said.

"Right," Anjilly said. "I was just getting to that - "

Good! the Silver Sand Witch snapped. Now finish the lecture! A pause. Am I being firm enough?

"Er...yes…ma'am?"

Hm. Ma'am. I like that.

"O-okay." Anjilly shook her head and glanced up at the screen. "Where were we? Batman, right. If you look at his traits in context, with every aspect of his character as a factor, he doesn't appear as 'Sue-ish—or 'Stu-ish—as you'd think."

"Um…Ms. Ka?" Somariel raised her hand. "Are you okay?"

"I…yes." Anjilly's voice wavered. "I'm fine. Tea deprivation? What tea deprivation?"

Agent Ka! I am firmly reminding you that you have a lecture to give!

"Yes!" Anjilly said. "Don't worry, it's fine. It's all fine. Yes."

Somariel looked unconvinced, but lowered her hand and didn't speak.

"So, Batman," Anjilly resumed. "We'll use Nolanverse, because it's more recent than other versions and is very popular. Just by his traits, he appears to be a 'Stu. But looking at his life story, you see how it makes sense. He was born to a rich family, with good looks and plenty of brains. The intellect can be attributed both to genetics—like it or not, to get rich and - more importantly - _stay_ rich you have to be smart—and upbringing—rich people can afford to pay for everything that'll give their kids an edge. Witnessing the death of his parents leaves young Bruce with some serious mental scars, and later gives him the drive he needs to become Batman. He's a 'badass fighter' because he takes the time to learn how to fight. His family fortune helps him finance his exploits as Batman.

"And most of all, his personality fits his backstory. As we all probably know, the death of his parents mentally scars young Bruce. He blames himself for it, as he insisted they leave early due to his fear of bats. He eventually becomes driven by a need to clean up the streets of Gotham City, to which end he creates the Batman persona. But this obsession can get in the way of him being Bruce Wayne, as Rachel points out when she calls Bruce's uncostumed face his 'mask.' And this drive to clean up the streets eventually costs Bruce Wayne his love, Rachel.

"What does Bruce Wayne-slash-Batman have that lets him possess so many 'Stu-ish traits and still be an amazing character with depth and a psychologically gripping story? He has personality. He has logic. His stories are heavily spiced with issues about morality and human nature. And he has great special effects. But mostly, it's the first three."

"I dunno, the special effects are pretty cool…" William GP joked. Anjilly glared and him and pulled a teapot out of a plothole. William gulped and shrank back against his seat.

"Yeah, you shrink back," she growled, stuffing the teapot back into its plothole. "Personality and logical storytelling are the keys to avoiding Studom. It is _perfectly_ possible to have special effects and supposed 'morality issues' while still creating an utter Gary-Stu, _trust me_." She coughed, and the noise sounded suspiciously like "Eragon."

Agent Ka, the lecture! the Silver Sand Witch reminded her. Firmly.

"On it! So, now that we've established that 'Sue traits can be handled properly to create good OCs, it's time to explore the how." Anjilly changed the slides again and read the new one. "Logic. Plausibility. And IT'S NOT ALL ABOUT 'SUE." Again the slides changed, this time to a list. "Here are the minor traits of 'Suedom, which can be used properly with effort."

Another slide change, and a picture of a model appeared with a bunch of text. "First, physical attractiveness. Nothing is wrong with being pretty or beautiful. Many human beings are, either naturally or because of surgery."

"Ugh," someone muttered.

Anjilly snapped her fingers. "Hey, none of that now. If someone wants to surgically or otherwise change their looks, that's their right! There's nothing wrong with that. What is wrong is when society makes people feel like they _should_ change their looks if they want to live fulfilling lives, but that's a whole 'nother can of worms. Standards of beauty vary amongst time and culture—in modern Western society, extremely thin waists with disproportionately large breasts and hips are the female standard for beauty, and the male standard includes six-packs and ridiculous amounts of muscle." Anjilly paused. A small smile stole across her face. "In medieval Western society, today's supermodels would have been viewed as deformed. Plump women were the beautiful ones, because they had enough money to eat. Only poor people were thin."

"What?!" Half the female students yelped.

"It's true!" Anjilly informed them. Gleefully, she continued, "Oh, and that was way back in the 1500s! By the time you hit the Victorian era over three hundred years later, Western women were using corsets to make their waists tiny. Really tiny."

"What's wrong with tiny?" Chriss asked.

"We are talking twenty inches here," Anjilly said. "Sometimes less."

"That's _possible_?" Moon Dragon yelped.

"With a lot of tightlacing and training your body to rearrange its organs, sure!" Anjilly grinned, enjoying the way the students squirm. "People have done all sorts of crazy things in the name of fashion over the years, some more dangerous than others. Like painting their faces white with lead paint, thus poisoning themselves."

"Idiots," Shiri muttered.

"It's not like they knew lead was that poisonous yet!" said Anjilly. "Pale skin used to be valued over tanned skin. Tanned skin meant you had to work outside all day, whereas pale skin meant you could afford to stay inside all day. Oh, and these are all just Western beauty practices I've mentioned. Other cultures and their time periods have other standards of beauty! Certain African and Asian cultures consider long necks to be beautiful, and have been using neck rings to achieve that look for centuries! Lotus feet were considered fashionable in China for hundreds of years, and many middle- and upper-class women's feet were tightly bound to look daintier and more lady-like. The practice only died out in the early 1900s - there are still elderly woman today who have disabilities from their bound feet! And today in Asia, doubled eyelids are considered more beautiful than single eyelids...and that belief is probably influenced by Western, white beauty standards, which is, again, a whole 'nother can of worms, albeit a related one. But I'm getting off topic. We were talking about physical attractiveness in relation to 'Suedom.

"Now, as I said a moment ago...well, a few moments ago, being attractive is not a crime. Just keep it realistic. Beautiful people usually know they're beautiful. Underestimating your beauty can happen if your self-esteem is low enough. Or maybe there's one part of you that you think is horrible and ugly, and you obsess on that, magnifying it out of proportion and downplaying your other features. This is okay. Everybody has something they dislike and magnify about their appearance. The main problem comes in when a character is more beautiful than everyone else and doesn't know it, usually leaving them completely unaware while the other characters obsess over this oblivious character's beauty.

"Oftentimes, 'Sues are described in terms of the fashion ideals presented by popular culture. Their body type is usually the same as an actress's or model's. Hourglass figure, sizable chest. Stus are usually heavily muscled - or lean and limber. Both are usually tall if height gets a mention. That's the thing, you know - so many bits of a Sue or Stu's appearance never _get_ mentioned. More often than not, the reader is told that the Sue is beautiful and is left to fill in the blanks. Faces suffer the most from this." She sighed. "I've seen so many beautiful faces, and so many of them were completely bland. Completely unimaginative facial structure. Like someone was playing Sims and never thought to fool around with the facial features. Do you know what I would have given to get someone with a slightly longer or shorter nose? A wider or smaller forehead? A different jawline or chin? But no - it was nothing but lazily pretty default faces. If I was lucky I'd get _freckles_."

"I...never thought about describing any of those things," Ai Da said.

"Of course you didn't," Anjilly sighed. "Let me guess - your character's face was pretty by default, and the only things you mentioned about her head were her hair and eye color? And possibly intelligence."

The student nodded meekly. Anjilly sighed again.

"Right. That's how it usually goes. Since most Suethors aren't imaginative or aware enough to describe facial features, they usually stick to the easier stuff - color. And, in hair's case, texture. It's not uncommon for writers to go overboard here, and that's how we get Sues and Stus with 'emerald eyes flecked with gold' and 'raven waves spilling across their shoulders.'" She smiled, a faraway look in her eye. "Back at HQ I have a friend whose hair 'falls in a golden waterfall down her back.'"

"...Is your friend a Mary-Sue?" Spry Pye asked cautiously.

"She's reformed," Anjilly said with a wave of her hand. With a shrewd look at the students, she added,"That's possible, you know."

"_How_?"

Anjilly grinned wickedly. "A lot of red ink. Now then. Sometimes, a writer will think to give their Sue or Stu a physical flaw! Hurray, right? Except the writer doesn't really _think_ about said flaw, or the impact it might have on characterization. None of the character's more visible scars seem to impact their daily life, be it positively or negatively. We're told a character has issues with their legs...and absolutely nothing manifests from that. The character walks or runs just as easily as everyone else. If we're lucky the writer will remember to make them complain about it. Or maybe we have a character recovering from an addiction, but that's all we're told. We never _see_ the character's struggles with withdrawal, never watch them experience any...any hardship, we're just told that they happen. We only know the character is going through that because we're _told_, not...shown. We just...just watch life...continue...as normal...with nothing but sparse and random mentions...and reminders about the issue..." Anjilly trailed off, looking pained.

Agent Ka!

"Right! Back to lecturing! Sometimes these physical flaws only serve to make them more beautiful, instead of balancing out their beauty. That would be because the writer _doesn't understand_ how to use or write flaws. Giving your character an issue to deal with doesn't do anything for you _unless you understand how that issue affects your character_. And then _make_ it affect them, don't just ignore it! Like - okay, think about this. What would it be like if Toph's blindness didn't affect her?"

"But...Toph's blindness _doesn't_ effect her," Cyrus said.

Anjilly pulled a teapot out of a plothole and threw it at the offending student. "_Affect_, not _effect_! And of course it does! She's _blind_! She can't see!"

"She might as well be able to," Cyrus muttered, rubbing his head where the teapot had clobbered him.

"Yes," Anjilly agreed, "Toph can use her earth sense to tell where things are or even what they look like, to an extent. But she is still living in a world where many _other_ people _can_ see, and thus in a society of seeing people. How can being blind _not_ have an impact, when the rest of the world is sight-based? Can anyone think of ways that being blind has affected her?"

"She...probably doesn't know what colors look like?" someone ventured.

"Good start! Anyone else?"

"She can't see things when they're in the air..." someone started. "And...she hates flying on Appa because of that."

"And sand!" someone added. "She said it made everything look fuzzy to her!"

"Good!" Anjilly said again. "How about something positive? What's a good thing that's come out of Toph's blindness?"

"It made her the most powerful Earthbender in the world?" said someone.

"Yes! Excellent!"

"But she can't read," someone else said.

"Also excellent!"

"She can't swim and she hates submarines."

"She never would've figured out metalbending if she could see!"

"She doesn't care so much about looks?" someone said. "Like...she has a different standard of beauty or attractiveness?"

Anjilly beamend. "By the Flowers That Be, I think there's actually _hope_ for you guys!"

Agent Ka, the Silver Sand Witch said. The lecture?

"I'm getting there, I'm getting there...come on, that was _good_! I'm actually _proud _of them!" Anjilly beamed at the students. "So, as you see - punintended - even with her earth sight, Toph's blindness _still_ affects her. It even helps directly affect the course of the series. Due to her blindness, she stays _outside_ of Wan Shi Tong's Library, allowing her to save her friends when the Knowledge Spirit starts sucking everything back to the Spirit World. Due to her blindness, she's scared of water. Due to her blindness, she _invents metalbending_. How awful and boring would it have been if the writers had merely written Toph as blind, but then never _acknowledged_ it?"

"Pretty awful," someone agreed.

"Exactly," Anjilly nodded. "That's why, when you give your character some sort of shortcoming or flaw - or, heck, even just a basic aspect of their characterization, being disabled certainly isn't a _flaw_, just different - you need to _acknowledge_ and _understand_ it, not ignore it. So, moving on. Sues, Stus, and beauty. Everyone tends to fawn over the Sue or Stu's beauty, especially characters the Sue or Stu is attracted to. Here's something to keep in mind—nobody has the same definition of beauty as another person. There are some basics that every human being recognizes, but what one person sees as stunning beauty may be viewed by another person as ordinary. Remember the cultural standards rant I gave you just a few paragraphs ago!"

"Paragraphs?" Lupe muttered to Lauphen. Lauphen shrugged.

"Ms. Ka?" Fyre Elaine raised a hesitant hand. "You said there were basics that everyone recognizes…could you expand on that?"

"I'm glad you asked," Anjilly nodded. "Most of the basics are rooted in numbers, such as a high waist-hip ratio or a face proportioned similar to the Golden Ratio phi. Symmetry is another high factor in someone's favor. A symmetrical face indicates health in the early childhood. The waist-hip ratio shows fertility, and ease in bearing children—wide hips mean easier passage out for an infant. Similarly, large breasts are associated with fertility, as they indicate a woman will produce a large amount of milk for her children."

"Eww! That's disgusting!" Danish made a face. "We don't wanna hear about breastfeeding and having babies!"

"Why not? It's the reason we have those parts," Anjilly shrugged. "We could just as easily have nipples on our bellies like canines or felines, but we don't." Half the class gagged at that mental image. "Breasts have been fetishized to the point of objectifying women. And yet, we aren't supposed to acknowledge their existence! Such a strange double standard. You aren't considered very attractive if you don't have them or don't emphasize them, but if you do you get branded a slut." Anjilly tapped her fingers for a moment, thinking. "This double standard is best portrayed by a Suvian fashion trend that took off during the Lord of the Rings movie fandom's heydays, back during the early to mid-2000s. The 'low-cut yet modest dress.' How is this oxymoronic garment possible? We just don't know. Not sure where it came from, either, though probably it was brought on by some of Arwen's low-necklined gowns in the movie... Anyway, my point. The Sues wearing this sort of dress were likely going for an attractive, alluring look - but not too alluring! Sues are usually very adamant about not looking like a 'slut' - whatever they think defines such a thing. To that end, they don't usually wear revealing clothing - or, if they do, they explain how it isn't really revealing at all."

"What's so bad about girls wearing revealing clothing?" Nathan Hofstad asked.

"If the world was filled with smart, rational people who don't judge others on appearances? Nothing. In the Real World?" Anjilly shook her head. "The ideal that wearing little clothing makes one beautiful is simply perpetuating the idea that women must appear sexually available to be attractive. In turn, this objectifies women as sexual objects."

"Ms. Ka?" Chriss Soh raised a hand.

"Yes, Ms. Soh?" Anjilly raised an eyebrow.

"Are you a feminist?" Chriss blurted. "You really sound like one."

"Of course I'm a feminist. Many women - and men - are."

"I'm not!" Karana Solara blurted. Anjilly turned her head to stare at the girl.

"Really." One corner of Anjilly's mouth twisted up. "So if a man were to walk up and proposition you, just because you're wearing a skirt, you'd be perfectly okay with it?"

"What? No way!" Karana exclaimed. "That's totally creepy!"

"Then welcome to feminism." Anjilly changed the slides. "Unfortunately, feminism isn't today's topic, though it is somewhat related...maybe we can have a seminar on feminism someday? Hmm. Anyway. May we continue with the next topic? Yes? Thank you. Next is extreme prowess. This is when a 'Sue is more talented at something than a canon character. Nothing is wrong with being a master Firebender, or an expert swordsman—the problem here arises when the character is 'just naturally talented' and hasn't had the training required to properly master the subject. Like when a teenager who's never had a proper Firebending lesson in their life can defeat Azula in an Agni Kai. Original characters with powers that far outstrip the similar powers of canon characters should be scrutinized closely, as oftentimes these characters will be 'Sues or 'Stus." After a pause she added, "Or, heck, sometimes even characters within the canon can have this problem. Like when a teenager manages to beat his swordmaster after a measly month of training, complete with a I Have Taught You Everything I Know speech from his mentor." She started coughing, and again, it sounded suspiciously like "Eragon."

Agent Ka, the Silver Sand Witch said, may I firmly remind you about the lecture?

"All I can say on the subject is 'Thank the Valar for Master Piandao.' Moving on. Like extreme physical beauty, this trait can be handled properly. The key to it is time. In order to develop any skill, you need time to practice that skill and learn the various nuances that go with it. Fighting in particular is a very difficult skill to master. You must learn a series of attacks and defenses, how to anticipate an opponent's moves, and train your body to be strong and fast and flexible. Lots of time goes into learning how to do things like that. Characters who are strong without years of training are highly unrealistic."

"Mary Suki!" Ashee Bieber screamed. An empty teapot collided with her face.

"If you're going to call Suki a 'Sue because she's such a strong fighter, think again," Anjilly informed the class. "The series itself states that she's trained for years to get to where she is, mostly likely since early childhood. On that regard, Suki has the canon speaking to her plausibility. If anyone, _Sokka _is the 'Stu in this regard. Canonically, he had a whole _day_ training with Master Piandao - and most of that training was metaphorical, not physical. Also he spent a lot of time forging Space Sword. And he was still able to hold his own against Piandao the next day - though he still lost, thank logic." She paused to think. "I suppose you could argue that Sokka really spent three or four days with Piandao, if you're willing to believe the time skips were a day each or so. But still, it was less than a week to learn how to use an entirely new weapon. Sokka's training is far more unrealistic than Suki's, really. There is an argument that Sokka is naturally gifted and a fast learner - he is! Just look at how quickly he learns things through the series - from Suki, from the Northern Water Tribe, from Piandao. Sokka's a quick study. But he'd still have a hard time holding his own against someone with years of experience on him - and he did."

"But…but…" Ashee rubbed her face. A red mark had sprung up on her cheek, and was threatening to turn into a bruise.

"No buts. Moving on." A new slide came up. "Tragic pasts. There are two forms of these that are commonly seen. First is when a truly terrible past is trivialized, or portrayed unrealistically. This includes, but is not limited to the 'Sue having lost both parents, the 'Sue having been tortured at some point, the 'Sue having been raped, the 'Sue being the only survivor of her people…it goes on. And you know what? There's—"

"—nothing wrong with that," Nathaniel Willowshaunt, Izar Laun, and Theodore White chorused. Anjilly narrowed her eyes, unsure if they were making fun of her. With only an hour to squeeze the entire lecture into, though, she decided to let it go and move on.

"Yes, as they said. Nothing's wrong with a tragic past…when you handle it right. You need to keep in mind how someone would feel after experiencing such a thing." Anjilly tapped her chin. "One major issue I know Karen wanted to bring up today was the aftereffects of a sexual assault. She seems to be under the impression that young fanauthors have no idea whatsoever how to handle writing rape and its aftereffects - and she'd be right. The number of 'Sues I've seen who've used rape and abuse for cheap tragic backstory..." She shook her head sadly. "These are serious issues, and they need to be treated with due respect and sensitivity. But I think we'll save that topic for another time."

I wonder why, the Silver Sand Witch commented dryly. Anjilly rolled her eyes at her.

Turning back to the students, Anjilly added, "For now, let it just be known that abuse and assault are not jokes, nor should they be used lightly, without any consideration about the repercussions. Doing so is highly disrespectful to people who have _actually_ lived through that kind of thing. Now, the best way to handle tragic pasts properly is to do a little research. You all have Internet access; I know this because we recruited you from the Pit, better known as fanfictiondotnet. Some Googling will find survivor accounts of all the major kinds of trauma, and you can use the information you find in these to help write your story.

"When writing a tragic past, it is crucial not to trivialize it. You may give a harmful impression of the issue being written about by presenting an incorrect representation to people who don't know about the subject. Try to spend a while - like, a _while_, at least a few days and a lot of research time - pondering the past you're giving the character. There are times of the day when you don't need to give your full attention to whatever you're doing, and you can use those times to think things over.

"Another form of tragic pasts is presenting a perfectly acceptable past as a curse, like being a princess or having an obscure interest. This form of tragic past can, again, be done right - mostly by not labelling it as _tragic_. Being a princess or liking weird things is not tragic."

"But isn't it hard to be a princess?" Jessica Carden asked.

"Yes," said Anjilly, "it can be. But in and of itself, simply being a princess is not tragic. What would be tragic is if you're the princess of a conquered kingdom, or your parents died and you need to be a responsible ruler. Princesses _can_ have tragic pasts, just like any other character. But you don't get to label your past as tragic just _because_ you're a princess. There's got to be more to it than that! Also, being a princess isn't necessarily hard for everyone. Take Yue versus Azula. Yue's role as a princess leaves her with little control over her life, whereas Azula's status gives her access to everything she's ever wanted. Azula exploits her situation to her own advantage, and Yue goes along with what her situation dictates. It's interesting to note their relationship with their respective element here - fire is aggressive and takes what it can, while water finds the easiest path and goes with the flow. Are either of them weaker characters for their actions? Absolutely not."

"Then…it's okay that Yue just rolled over and let her father engage her to Hahn, even though Hahn's a jerk and the whole practice is stupid and sexist?" Allie Doyle asked.

"What else could she do? She was the Tribal Princess of the Northern Water Tribe." Anjilly shrugged. "If she'd tried to refuse, like as not it would have caused huge internal strife in the tribe. Running would have meant sending valuable warriors to bring her back. It was Yue's _duty_, and she swallowed her misgivings and _did her duty_. Unlike someone I know…"

I'm sure Karen will come back soon.

"Yes, and I'm sure she'll get over her cookie obsession too." Anjilly rolled her eyes. "The girl is hopeless. She's immature, loud, can't focus on anything important for more than an hour, hates paperwork…doesn't understand how hard it is for me without a constant supply of tea and...and bleeprin..."

You do recall there's a class to teach, right?

"Huh? Oh, right, thank you." Anjilly rubbed one eye before continuing. "Gah…where were we? Tragic pasts?"

No, you just finished tragic pasts. There's really not much to talk about there. Of course, I'm not one to talk, I don't know a thing about the subject.

"Your past isn't tragic?" someone asked. When the Silver Sand Witch turned to look at them, they shrank back a bit. "I mean...y'know, since you're kinda...weird..."

I am an illogical being made up of sand and an unimpressive misspelling. That isn't tragic - that's _annoying_.

"Indeed," said Anjilly. "But we love you anyway. Ah. Okay, what was next?" she changed slides and peered at the screen. "Seems like…canon relation. That is...Sues who are related to canon characters. Mmph.

"Surprisingly, this can be applied to more than just original characters. Sometimes a Sue-possessed canon character will be related to another canon character, or in the case of a crossover, certain characters will be related to characters from another canon to help facilitate the crossover's plotline. This depends on the nature of the relationship, which is not always familial, when we think about how possibly 'Sue-ish it might be.

"For instance, adding a sibling to a previously-established canon family. We'll take Sokka and Katara's family for this example. Is there anything in the canon that might support them having a third sibling?"

Midori BM raised a hand. "Katara was only four or five when their mother died, so…so isn't it possible Kya had another kid? I mean, Sokka's a year older than Katara, so why wouldn't Kya and Hakoda have wanted another child? Or maybe they had a kid before Sokka."

"These are acceptable suggestions." Anjilly smiled at Midori. "And how would you explain this third sibling's failure to be mentioned in the series?"

"If the kid was older, maybe they were captured in a Fire Nation raid?" Midori was quickly gaining confidence. "Maybe if it was a boy, he could've left with the men before the series. Or, if the kid was younger, Kya could have been kidnapped instead of killed, and was pregnant at the time, and eventually had the kid in captivity."

"All acceptable suggestions." Anjilly encouraged. "And what if the story features the third sibling as being known to Sokka and Katara, and present at the time of Aang's appearance? Since Midori's done so well, can we get someone else to talk? Ms. Railey, what about you?"

"Me?" Amber Railey paled. "I, uh, um, can I pass?"

"No. Give us some ideas of what would be acceptable actions for original characters in the scenario."

"Uhh." Amber's mind blanked. "Maybe…the sibling could…stay behind at the South Pole to look after the rest of the tribe?"

"Excellent! And what else?"

"They could…go along with the Gaang?" Amber shrank back in her seat, sure she was about to get detention.

"Quite right Sibling 3 could!" Anjilly clapped her hands together. Amber felt a rush of relief, and went back to not being mentioned for the rest of the chapter. "Now, keep in mind that the second course of action would be more difficult to write properly than the first. To keep an original character non-'Sued while adding them to the Gaang is a nightmare, because you have to keep the course of events on track while changing them to suit the new, expanded Gaang. Can this be done? Of course it can. It's just hard."

"Wait a minute, I got sent here because of an OC that joined the Gaang!" Chloe Cooksey rose to her feet. "If it's okay to write a story like that, why was I sent here?!"

"My guess? You wrote the character badly, and they became a 'Sue," Anjilly answered coolly. "But don't take it up with me. OFUA:TLA exists to teach you how to write better for a reason, my dears." Chloe sat back down with a "hmph," a sullen expression on her face.

"Going back to the subject, as a mentioned before, familial relations aren't the only relationships that 'Sues can have. Being a canon's long-lost best friend, or love, is another method of OCs inserting themselves into the story. Here we get into dangerous territory, for in Avatar, it's highly unlikely that any of the canons have been in love before. A good majority of them are kids!

"Let me explain why it's so very unlikely that the main three male canons, Zuko, Sokka, and Aang, would have long-lost loves. Aang, for starters, was frozen in an iceberg for a hundred years! Any long-lost loves of his would have to be over a hundred by the time of the series. Admittedly, he's been to many places around the world…but he was really too young to be thinking about romance until he was eleven or twelve. He spent most of his life wanting to be a monk, and while procreation may not have been forbidden for monks, you can imagine his focus on learning how to be a monk might have influenced whatever love life potential Aang had.

"Then Sokka. He's lived his whole life in the Southern Water Tribe, and from what we can see in the series, Katara was the only girl his own age. Now, some people theorize that Sokka and Katara's village wasn't the only one in the Southern Water tribe, but while the other hypothetical villages may have had girls his age, he probably didn't meet them very often. Ever since his father and the men of the tribe left, he's been personally responsible for all the hunting and fighting that needs done. How much time would that leave for romance? Well, how much time do you lot have for romance?"

"Not that much…" ihaznoideawuttowrite muttered.

"Meep and [-] have plenty of time," Sofia noted.

"So true." Anjilly sighed. "It's likely that the women of the tribe would go out to fish themselves, or that the women collected plants, shellfish, and other small foodstuffs from the area around the tribe, but Sokka had to literally bring in the bacon. For a tribe that presumably subsists on a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, this means he was doing the equivalent of ten men's work _at least_. Would any of you care to do that? Are any of you even good enough hunters to attempt such a thing?"

"We probably could," Caelin Cacanisius bragged. His partner-in-crime Colin grinned and nodded.

"Suuuuure you could." Anjilly rolled her eyes. "Because I'm sure you've gone hunting in sub-zero weather with just a boomerang, a club, and a spear before."

"Nah, but we'd pick it up pretty fast," Colin shrugged.

"I really wish Karen was here. She'd want to send you to the South Pole to see how you do, and videotape it so your failure will be a warning to others..." Anjilly paused. "Actually, that sounds like a good idea anyways. There'd be no danger of you starving over the weekend, and you probably wouldn't freeze to death…even if you did, we have plenty of Spirit Water…"

Anjilly? I thought you disapproved of torturing students? the Silver Sand Witch sounded worried.

"Oh, I won't actually torture them. I'll just let them get a taste of reality." Anjilly smiled. "Hmm. Congratulations, boys, you're going hunting this weekend."

"Woot!" The boys grinned. They would later stop grinning, as in the course of their trip they would not only fail to catch anything but also contract frostbite in their hands, feet, ears, and noses. Yugoda's healing would save their extremities, but the memory of the experience kept them humble for about half a day. After that they went right back to obnoxiously believing themselves the greatest fighters around. But that's the future, and as knowing the future is a dubious realm at best, we're not going into that right now. Especially seeing as OFUA:TLA prefers its timelines to be perfectly linear. Unlinear timelines are for Homestuck, Doctor Who, and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

"Moving on to Zuko, then. For starters, he's a prince, and a very busy one with a lot to prove. His life has been spent working to achieve his goals, especially during his exile - I doubt he's had the time to feel anything more than a passing attraction for anyone, if even that much. Speaking of attraction, he's had a crush on Mai for years, no?"

"But couldn't he have liked someone else at some point?" Fyre Elaine called.

"Yes, he might have. And that's acceptable, if done right." Anjilly narrowed her eyes. "Here we must consider the situation Zuko is in. He grew up in the caldera portion of the Fire Nation's capital. It's implied that only nobility and royalty are allowed into the caldera, unless the Fire Lord extends an invitation to a commoner. Zuko would be far more likely to meet a nobleman's daughter than to meet a commoner, much less fall in love with a commoner. Also keep in mind that Zuko was banished at age thirteen - that is, the age when he'd just be getting over his 'girls are crazy' stage. It's likely he didn't have much interest before his banishment - unless he had to knock a flaming apple off Mai's head, of course."

"What about when he's banished, then?" Chriss Soh asked.

"Then I doubt he would have cared about anything other than finding the Avatar," Anjilly replied. "You've all seen the series, admittedly under duration for some. Did Zuko look interested in anything other than tracking down Aang at all costs? I don't think so. Capturing the Avatar was his only interest. If he looked twice at a girl, it's because he thought she might know something about the Avatar. His entire character was based around the drive to find and capture Aang."

"Wouldn't that make it even more romantic for him to fall in love?" Carsten D objected.

"Whose opinion are you asking, mine or a fangirl's? Maybe it would seem romantic to a preteen, but as an adult, I can tell you that it just seems silly and out of character." Anjilly snorted. "I don't want to insult anyone who likes the idea, but I just find it impossible to believe Zuko would do anything like that. Why would he give up his one hope of going home, of earning his father's love and approval, for some girl? Especially if he's just met her, as happens in so many 'Sue fics."

"Don't you believe in love at first sight?" Ida Smithsonian cried.

"Absolutely not," Anjilly stated. "Lust at first sight, or friendliness at first sight, yes, but love? Love takes time. You have to let it blossom, let it grow. Just because you think someone's attractive, you don't automatically want to spend the rest of your life with them. Love requires knowing someone. If you don't know them, you don't love them, it's as simple as that."

"You're wrong," Rikki Brook scowled.

"If that's your opinion, we're going to have to agree to disagree." Anjilly's polite words were strained.

"Can we get back to the lesson, instead of this stupid tangent about love?" Cyrus Windfall complained.

"Certainly we can," Anjilly agreed. "I think we've talked enough about inserting an OC into a relationship with a canon, romantic or no. Let's look at the final salvageable trait of 'Suedom," slide change, "falling for a canon character."

"What?!" Ashee Bieber shrieked. "No _way_ is that a 'Sue trait!"

"It certainly is, Ms. Bieber," Anjilly winced. "And please keep your voice down in the future. While falling for a canon character is one of the most common OC traits in Fanfiction, many Mary Sues have this trait as well. Some might argue for this trait to be one of the foremost parts of the Mary Sue psyche—after all, their warping effect on the minds of canon characters into either worshipping or despising the 'Sue helps catch the Lust Object.

"Here we find one of the easiest ways to prevent a character from portraying a 'Sue trait, and paradoxically, the hardest: Keep the canon in character."

"How's that a paradox?" Izzy Smiling asked.

"Keeping a canon in character is a lot of work," came the answer. "Depending on how well you understand a character, you may need to watch and rewatch scenes with them in it, read the comics or books, consult the fandom Wiki and get friends' opinions. Some people can know a character inside and out right off the bat, and others need to research and think about various things before reaching that same knowledge. Dialogue in particular can be tricky, because nobody speaks in the exact same way."

"Ms. Ka?" Ari Mason raised her hand. "Is it really as simple as keeping a canon in character? It seems to me it should be harder."

"Yes, it's that simple," Anjilly chuckled. "_And_ it is also that hard. But by that logic, there are some canon characters that simply would not fall in love with a character, based on both the canon's characterization and the OC's. A character's circumstances, such as the presence or absence of a significant other at some point in time, will further affect the possibility of a canon falling for an OC. Zuko's not about to dump Mai because some other girl comes along, especially not after they've made up in the series finale." Anjilly paused, then squinted into the dark seating area. "Ah…Ms. Roseanne, Mr. Smith, I can't see what you're doing and I don't want to, but sit upright in your seats and pay attention. Please."

"Aww…" Andy pouted. Ishi Bananas, who had been thoroughly disgusted at this point and unable to move away, elbowed her as hard as he could. Andy stuck her tongue out at him, but sat up.

"Are those all the traits?" William GP called.

"All the secondary traits, yes," Anjilly nodded. "These traits can be used in original characters without making those characters 'Sues by default. However, there are three other traits that, when found in an original character, are invariably the marks of 'Suedom. I give you…" Somewhere offstage, dramatic music began to play. Anjilly raised her hand and, with a flourish and a bow, changed the slides. "…the Three Unforgivable Traits!"

The music cut off abruptly. Nobody made a sound. Anjilly, still bent over from her bow, looked up at the student section through her eyelashes. "Knew I shouldn't have tried Karen's trick…" she muttered, straightening. "Here they are, students. The three most 'Sueish traits you can find, oh-so-originally termed the Three Unforgivable Traits by Karen in her notes." Several of the female students giggled. "I know. She thinks she's so clever."

"Anjilly, senor dangao pickle fell asleep!" Scarlet Johnson raised her hand.

"He's drooling," Isabella Rose added.

"Hm? Yes, I noticed." Anjilly sighed. "Leave him be. He's absorbing everything I say while he sleeps. I don't know how he does it, but we tested it with a recorded lecture from a theoretical physicist's classroom. He knew about everything discussed, even the things that didn't make sense to Wan Shi Tong."

"What? I wanna do that!" Danish grinned.

"Sorry. You can't." Anjilly raised one eyebrow. "We have no idea how he does it, and in any case, do you think I want everyone to sleep through class?"

"But it sounds so coooool!" Danish whined.

"And it really isn't. Do you want to learn everything that goes on while you sleep? Trust me, you'll learn things you don't want to. While you sleep, the people you're learning from will get offended and start to dislike you. People will tease you and call you a weirdo. All that, for learning things while you sleep. Still sound like fun?"

"Um…yes?" Danish blinked.

"Detention."

"Aw man!"

"Moving on," Anjilly insisted. "We need to finish these traits before class can end. Can we all agree to stop the pointless distractions and focus on the lessons?"

"Yes, ma'am," the students chorused.

"Good. Now, when you get down to it, a 'Sue story makes little sense." Anjilly shuddered in remembrance of past 'Suefics. The Silver Sand Witch, sensing an impending flashback, floated over to Anjilly. "Psychology goes out the window, as does the narrative sense. Girls mysteriously dropping into the Tolkienverse from Earth can understand everyone, despite speaking English when the canons speak Westron, and they're excited to realize where they are instead of being scared. They'll join the Fellowship as a Tenth Walker, completely destroying Tolkien's lovely numerical symbolism of the nine Fellowship members against the nine Ringwraiths, and—"

Anjilly. The Silver Sand Witch clapped a hand over her friend's mouth, firmly. That's the Tolkienverse. This is the Avatarverse.

"Oh. Right." Anjilly blinked. The Silver Sand Witch's hand was still over her mouth, so the words were muffled, but the Hall's amazing acoustics made them loud enough to understand. "Can you move your hand? Thank you. Going off the Earth-girl and Tenth Walker examples, say a 'Sue from Earth is mystically transported to Avatarverse."

"Where is she transported to?" Danish yelled.

"Yeah! Is it the Water Tribes, the Earth Kingdom, the Fire Nation?" Ashee shouted.

"Ooh! I wanna get dropped into the Fire Nation! Maybe I could meet Zuzu and make him fall for me!" Danish squealed. Everyone around her clapped their hands over their ears; when Danish or Ashee squealed, the noise could shatter glass.

"Shh! I wanna hear the lesson!" Carsten D scowled at the girls.

"Aww, they're just having some fun," Chriss Soh laughed. "They're still kids, give them a break."

"You're only a year older than us," Fyre Elaine pointed out.

"Yeah, so? That just means I'm a year more mature."

"As if!"

"Students!" Anjilly scolded. A teapot appeared in her hand. Ashee, Danish, Fyre, and Chriss gulped in unison and sank back against their seats. "Thank you. Shall we discuss our example? A 'Sue from Earth drops into, oh…Ba Sing Se. She understands everyone, despite them speaking an unidentified language that is likely Chinese. Her modern clothing goes completely unremarked, even though she's likely not color-coordinated for one specific Nation—or if she is color-coordinated, just for the wrong Nation. When she encounters the Gaang, they let her join after a pointless argument where she presents a weak defense of her stance but is accepted."

Don't forget how she's probably not a good fighter, but becomes better than the canons in a short amount of time, The Silver Sand Witch interjected. Anjilly turned to her and raised an eyebrow. What? I took a look at your notes. Sue me. In the legal sense.

Anjilly shuddered. "Of _course_ in the legal sense; I would _never_ wish a Possession!Sue on you. But yes, of course. The Gaang allows a useless Earth-girl to join them, which might not actually be that implausible given how soft Aang and Katara are, but that's beside the point. Our 'Sue has, by this point, realized where she is and is excited to be there. Why worry about getting home? Who wants to go home? It's not like our 'Sue cares about her family and friends back home. They never appreciated her anyways. So the Gaang gets its fourth or fifth member, or sixth or seventh if we're at the last half of season three. Miss 'Sue never seems to mention the lack of modern amenities, or how difficult life without said amenities are…Miss 'Sue is too busy having fun and acting like an idiot who doesn't realize how bad things might be."

Anjilly paused for a moment, then added, "And one thing that really gets me is how little that type of 'Sue thinks of or mentions their family. Any backstory is likely to be tragic, or never revealed. It's like the character has all the knowledge of our world that a teenager would, but instead of living in our world, materialized in the Avatarverse.

"Here is where the first of the Unforgivable Traits appears: a lack of narrative or psychological sense. Some readers don't pick up on this lack, which does not reflect badly on them—they're just too inexperienced to recognize it. More time spent reading and developing the skills to see when this is a problem easily rectifies the situation."

"Why is this such a big deal?" Amy Ochanian asked.

"You know all the plotholes floating around this school? Think of those, only instead of working _with_ the characters, they work _against_ them," Anjilly clarified.

"...Is she insinuating that the plotholes work _with_ us here?" Lauphen asked.

Lupe shuddered. "If this is what it's like when they work _with_ you, I'd hate to know what it's like when they work _against_ you."

"People and items pop out of nowhere with no explanation," Anjilly continued, "logic loops appear and strangle you when you least expect it, Legolas slips and falls out of a tree despite being an Elf…"

Avatarverse, Anjilly. Not Tolkienverse. Avatarverse, the Silver Sand Witch reminded the Course Coordinator.

"Oh. Right." Anjilly paused. "Katara turning out to have clothing totally unsuitable for the South Pole. Does that work?"

Yes, I suppose it does, the Silver Sand Witch ceded.

"Thank you. Have I made my point, students?" Anjilly gazed out into the dim student section. "I'll take that as a yes. We'll move to the Second Unforgivable Trait.

"Now, the Second Unforgiveable Trait, OOCness, applies to a 'Sue's effect on canon characters in a story. A character will either instantly like or dislike the 'Sue, despite evidence to the contrary. 'Sues who threaten the Gaang are welcomed into their fold, despite being bitchy to Sokka and rude to Katara or Aang. Sokka will dislike a 'Sue because he's suddenly falling back into sexism, despite Suki beating that out of him in The Warriors of Kyoshi Island. Worse, Iroh will dislike a 'Sue for no reason at all. Or Katara feels threatened by the 'Sue hitting on Aang, despite Katara not fully realizing she likes Aang until the last minute of the last episode of the series."

"She knew she liked Aang before that!" Moon Dragon objected.

"Liked him as a friend, yes," Anjilly countered, "but she didn't think of a romantic possibility until he kissed her during the Invasion. After that, she was confused, unsure of how she felt and refusing to bring the subject up. In the Ember Island Players episode Aang confronts her, and she _tells_ him how confused she feels. Finally, in the last few minutes of the last episode, she seems to realize that she does indeed love Aang romantically and kisses him.

"Moving on, we have to keep in mind that the characters instantly like or dislike the 'Sue because of a reason that is out of character for them. Katara instantly trusting a stranger because said stranger is from the Water Tribes, or at least a Waterbender, or being a female around Katara's age with a couple of common interests, is fine. Katara can be a very trusting person - as shown by the Hama debacle. But if Katara likes someone who just held a knife to Aang's throat, well. Not what you'd expect from her.

"It bears mentioning that a 'Sue's physical appearance often plays a large role in others' opinions of her." Anjilly shook her head in exasperation. "Sokka being instantly attracted to a pretty girl, and liking her because of it, fine. Zuko seeing a pretty girl and forgetting everything to go after her, not so fine. For most of the first two seasons, Zuko's motivation is to capture Aang, with all else secondary. He's already interacted with several pretty girls in canon - Katara, Song, Jin, even Jun - and he didn't care for any of them in a romantic way. Maybe Jin, but he forgot her easily enough since she had nothing to do with his goals. He probably doesn't care if someone's male or female, just that they're either in his way or helping him along. Anyone not 'with or against him,' as it were, he might not notice at all. But we've been over this already, haven't we?"

"Yup," Zuna muttered.

"Hmm." Anjilly glanced at her watch. It wouldn't be long until class ended. Ah, how time flies. "Let's talk about the dangers of this trait. The OOCness of a character thanks to a 'Sue's presence can give readers unfamiliar with the canon a wrong impression of the canon, discouraging them from learning more about the canon on their own. When a reader is unfamiliar with the canon, they may also be unable to identify this trait, and assume the reader is doing a better job than they actually are.

"The last Unforgivable Trait is Speshulness."

The Silver Sand Witch faked a gag.

"My thoughts exactly," Anjilly agreed. "Here we find one of the most outrageous aspects of a 'Sue there could be. Mary Sue is special, because she's Mary Sue. Whatever she does, no matter how outrageous, is met with adoration. Does she sing pop songs to harp music? Everyone thinks it's lovely. Disrespecting a high-ranking military officer while she's a prisoner? Respect for her goes up. Her clothing is in contrasting primary colors, but she says she's beautiful? Of course she is. Zuko agrees wholeheartedly. Everything is all about Mary Sue.

"It's this fixation on the 'Sue, to the detriment of other characters, that really makes or breaks a 'Sue. She steals the spotlight from other characters. Whatever she does is wonderful, and her flaws aren't really flaws. If everything is all about a single perfect, illogical, super-attractive, in-your-face awesome character, chances are good that character is a 'Sue."

"So, what you're saying is, if all the events in a story seem to center around one character in particular, that character is a 'Sue?" Sofia Owens called.

"No," Anjilly said. "If all the events in a story seem to center around one character in particular, that character is probably the _main character_. And sometimes, that character can be a Sue - like if they twist the canon, warp reality, destroy other characters' personalities to make themselves seem more awesome... Many other, smaller indications and traits exist, like events happening for no good reason or a Deus Ex Machina. But most of these smaller traits can be folded into the other, larger traits."

"Does bad spelling count for a 'Sue trait?" Freeranger called.

"Not necessarily, though bad spelling often accompanies a 'Suefic," Anjilly admitted. "I would recommend thinking of bad spelling as a simple sign of unfamiliarity with the misspelled words, a lack of spellcheck, or a simple case of preteenism."

"What's preteenism?" Vera Moretti yelled.

"Being a preteen." Half the students started to laugh at that, until they realized Anjilly wasn't making a joke. "You'd be surprised how few preteens think spelling matters. Texttalk in a fic usually means a writer is under twenty."

"Why would anyone use texttalk in a Fanfiction?" Owlson Pierce puzzled.

"That's a good question," Anjilly sighed. "My guess would be people like to write fast, and texttalk has very abbreviated words. There's nothing wrong with putting a draft into texttalk, but the least you could do is take out the shortened words before publishing the story. Not everybody knows texttalk, and puzzling out what the author is trying to say really takes away from the story.

"And on that note, I'm going to end the lecture. Before you go, any questions?"

Rikki raised her hand. "Is it possible to have an original character fall in love with a canon character? And...not have her be a Sue? Or Stu?"

Anjilly pursed her lips. "It's _possible_, I suppose...but extremely hard to pull off. I suppose, in part, it depends which canon character it is. If your OC is in love with a minor character like Haru, Teo, Song, or Ty Lee, it'll be much easier, as none of them have a lasting love interest. If you're character is after Zuko, Katara, Sokka, or Aang, it'll be much harder. They are major characters with important effects on the storyline and clear romantic interests. You'll have to come up with a plausible reason for why they fall for your OC instead of their canon love interest - preferably _without_ making Mai or Suki either dead or 'jealous bitches'. _Here's_ an idea - a female OC who is in love with Zuko _and_ BFFs with Mai! How is that possible? I don't know, but surely you can come up with an interesting story based on it! Haven't you ever crushed on the same person as one of your friends?"

Lauphen sank a little in her seat.

"Or maybe in this 'verse Mai gets fed up with waiting for Zuko to come to his senses - it's draining and she has a life of her own to live, dammit - and wishes the OC her best. She's going to need it, after all!" Anjilly waved her hands. "Anything is possible when you don't insist on lady-bashing to make your ships work! Any other questions?"

"What's the worst Sue or Stu you've ever seen?" Sofia asked.

Anjilly gave a thin-lipped smile. "Let's just say there's a restraining order forbidding me from stepping foot in Alagaësia and leave it at that. Any other questions?"

"Um…" Elise hesitantly raised her hand. "I was wondering…this is off-topic, but is Fire Lady Ursa a Firebender?"

"_Princess_ Ursa," Blue Witten insisted. "She vanished before Ozai became Fire Lord, so she was never technically the Fire Lady."

"Oh dear." Anjilly pinched the bridge of her nose. "Are we really going to get into this? May I ask how this started?"

"Well, a bunch of the Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation students were studying together Sunday night for a Basic Canon quiz, and somebody asked if Ursa was bender. Huanzhe started to giggle, which was really creepy since we didn't know he was there until then, and the study session sort of broke apart with the question unanswered, so…" Elise trailed off.

"Ah. Well, that's difficult to answer, mostly because there isn't an answer. The Creators never specified whether or not Ursa was a bender. We just don't know." Anjilly glanced at the scorched floor. "Poor Ursa doesn't know herself."

"What? She doesn't?" Shiri asked.

"Nope. None of us have a clue." Anjilly shook her head. "I think it makes sense for Ursa to bend, because the Fire Nation royal line would want to ensure strong benders in their lineage. Because of that, when I'm around, Ursa really is a bender."

"Huh?!" That caught the students' attention.

"Should I specify…? I think I should." Anjilly cleared her throat. "In a nutshell, the fandom can sometimes affect the canon. When the majority of the fans in the room believe Ursa is a Firebender, then she is one. Ursa hates it when Karen's around, because Karen is very vehement about her belief in Ursa not being a Firebender."

"Why does Karen think Ursa's not a bender?" Izzy called.

"She thinks familial and political power mean more to the Fire Nation upper class than bending status," Anjilly explained. "And even without being a bender herself, Ursa's relation to Avatar Roku might have been enough if the Fire Nation really did value bending power. That, and Karen just likes the thought of there being a non-bender in the royal family."

"Agent Ka, can we go back to what you said earlier about the fandom influencing the canon?" Sofia suggested. "Taking what you said at face value, it sounds like you're saying the fans can affect the series and its offshoot media. Can you clarify?"

"Gladly. What do you think the Ember Island Players episode was about?" Anjilly smiled. "The Creators made it so that it reflected both popular fanon ideas, such as Zutara, and some original concepts of their own that were later changed, like Toph being a big, muscular guy. Meanwhile, widely accepted fanon ideas, such as the Fire Nation being based on Japan, can influence the perception of canon so that others start to use very Japan-esque cultural aspects when expanding on the Fire Nation. That's one example of fanon actually _overriding_ canon. The idea of the Fire Nation being based on Japan is so popular in fandom that most fans assume it's true-even though there's no basis for this belief, nothing specifically Japanese about the Fire Nation, and in spite of clear Han Chinese and Thai influences on the Fire Nation's culture. But we'll go into that at a later date. Any more questions, comments, or concerns? If not, I have work to do, since Karen isn't around to force into it...not that she'd do it anyway..."

"You're doing really well without tea, y'know!" Caelin shouted. Maybe, hopefully, it was meant to be encouragement, or perhaps it was intended cruelty. Either way, the minute she heard the t-word, Anjilly's face crumpled.

"T…tea…" she moaned.

Agent Ka, the Silver Sand Witch said, the lecture-

"Is over!" Anjilly shouted. "It's over, it's over, I don't need to hold myself together anymore, I GIVE UP." She fell facedown on the floor and laid there, sobbing.

Congratulations, the Silver Sand Witch snapped at Caelin. You are a horrible, insensitive person. I hope you can tell how serious I am by how firm I am being. This seminar is over. All of you out. I am ordering you all out very firmly. Out! OUT!

The students hurried out.

FASTER!

The students hurried faster.

* * *

In the aftermath of Caelin's comment and Anjilly's subsequent breakdown, the seminar planned for that weekend—Canon Misconceptions—was postponed for another week while Anjilly pulled herself together. Caelin and Colin did indeed go on their hunting trip, with aforementioned consequences. The students had a nasty quiz in Basic Canon which they mostly passed. Sofia and Sunan tied for the second highest score, the highest going to senor dangao pickle, who had slept through the entire quiz. Danish had also slept through the whole quiz, netting herself a score of zero and a week of detention with make-up classes. Meep and [-], the school's poster couple, were observed to take their lunches out in the yard together near the mini-forest. Andy and Joe were frequently seen creeping in and out of said forest, in various states of dishevelment. Ashee, Danish, Fyre, and Chriss received detention for painting love graffiti to their Lust Objects on the walls. Lauphen began to sulk more each day, until her friends only saw her at class.

Another interesting development was the Zutara Club's slow withdrawal from the public eye. Lupe had been too busy working with Marshall to attend the last few meetings, but whenever she saw her fellow club members she got the feeling they weren't telling her something. Whatever shenanigans they were up to, the Zutara Club seemed determined to keep it secret.

Freeranger, who had managed to convince the staff to let her participate in the mainstream curriculum despite having no Nation, began to attend classes with the Earth Kingdom and Water Tribe students.

Many of the pets, who were largely ignored by the students, got restless and started fighting amongst themselves. Fyre's cats Lily and Sophie nearly killed an unaware guard. Fyre herself was ordered to write an apology note to Guard Lee and his family.

Throughout everything, the tea—and Mai4, who had last been seen in teapot form—remained missing.

On Tuesday evening, Lupe headed to her part-time job with Marshall feeling completely exhausted. She didn't know what to do about Lauphen, who was slowly drawing away from everyone. Meep and [-] didn't seem to notice anything was wrong, but as they spent all their time together, Lupe couldn't spend time with them unless she wanted to be a third wheel. Sofia and Sunan spent all their time studying or talking about things that went way over Lupe's head. Zerkz was nice, but his Suki obsession made it hard to spend time with him.

"And I thought my friends in the real world had all the drama…" Lupe muttered. She passed by General Fong on her way through the no-man's-land between the Student and Staff Sections.

"Ms. Hernandez! Off to work?" Fong waved.

"Yeah. Where are you heading?" Lupe asked.

"Patrolling the school," Fong replied. He seemed more cheerful than Lupe could remember him being at the Festival. "Ever since we lost fifty of our guards for their dragon dance tour, Anjilly's been recruiting minor characters to take over their duties. I pulled night duty with half the Dai Li and the Kyoshi Warriors."

"The Dai Li? You trust them?" Lupe shivered. "Don't they creep you out?"

"They are eerie, but I trust them to do their jobs," Fong shrugged. "And when I was young, the Dai Li were just cultural police. Long Feng reorganized them into his own personal shock troops when he came to power."

"So they haven't always been evil?" Lupe wondered what the Dai Li did as cultural police.

"Well, maybe a little corrupt - they were meant to be feared, after all. But Avatar Kyoshi founded them over two hundred years before Aang's time," Fong informed Lupe. "Their original purpose was to protect the important cultural artifacts of Ba Sing Se. They turned 'evil,' as you put it, when Long Feng made them into his secret police."

"Really? The brainwashing and stuff didn't start until Long Feng came around?" Lupe paused. It did make sense that the brainwashing started after Long Feng's rise to power. Why hide the War's existence otherwise? And the War was only a hundred years old, whereas the Dai Li were older.

"Well," Fong admitted, "The series _was_ very vague on the whole subject. But why _would_ the Dai Li have been evil from the start? It's likely that Long Feng changed a lot of things in Ba Sing Se." Fong's good mood took a momentary dip, then returned. "But I need to get going, or I'll be late. It was nice to see you again, Ms. Hernandez. Enjoy your work with Marshall."

"I'll try to, thanks." Lupe smiled at Fong, then headed for Marshall's workshop.

When Lupe opened the workshop door, the first thing that struck her was the smell. Marshall glanced up from a pot of simmering black ink and smiled. "You're late," he commented. His characteristic grin was fixed on his face, despite the horrid stench of the ink. "Put some gloves on, please. I need you to stir the ink."

"Don't you think you have enough?" Lupe complained. She took two heavy cowpighide gloves from a hook by the door and walked over to the pot. Marshall handed her the ink spoon—which Lupe had taken to calling the spoon used for stirring ink—and stepped out of her way.

"You can never have too much ink," Marshall assured Lupe. "And I use a lot of it every day. The yearbook pictures are done, but now I have to make lots of miniature versions, and a large version of each so the yearbooks can be personalized, and designs to go in the yearbook, and work on my personal projects. We sell the rest to buy supplies from the Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation."

"Have you ever taken a day off?" Lupe sighed. She leaned as far away from the ink pot as she could and started stirring.

"Why would I want to take a day off?" Marshall asked. "Art is fun!"

"The sad thing is, I know you mean it," Lupe muttered. "How long til this pot's done?"

"I just added the glue, so it'll be a while."

"Joy." Stirring a pot of glue was a very boring process requiring little actual thought from the person stirring, as Lupe had learned early on. While the ink thickened, stirring grew more and more difficult, until it was like dragging a stick through quicksand. As a measure against boredom, Lupe had devised a way to practice her Firebending skills while stirring ink.

She closed her eyes and drew in a deep, steady breath. Her focus went to the sense of touch, then to the warmth on her skin from the ink pot and the fire underneath. Lupe could visualize the fire perfectly, how it leapt and danced and twined about itself, ever in motion. The heat of the flames matched the warmth of Lupe's body.

Then, with careful concentration, Lupe willed the flames to gather together and get hotter. She couldn't have described how she did it, no more than she could explain how her heart beat. Reluctantly, the flames drew in, fighting to burst out every centimeter. Fire hated to be controlled, as Lupe had learned. It was always hungry, like a starving man, wanting more food, more fuel, to break out and consume everything…

But it wouldn't. Lupe was in control here. She guided the flames into a globe, condensing the energy into a smaller space and increasing the fire's heat. Remembering how too hot a flame could scorch the ink and make it useless, Lupe flattened the fire into a low disk. Tendrils licked upwards, caressing the black pot of ink. With a twist of will, Lupe suppressed them. The fire fought with all its might, but Lupe held it back: She was its master. It did what she wanted.

Lupe never felt more powerful than when she was controlling fire. What would creating the fire be like, then? Just thinking of it made her giddy. Jeong-Jeong's insistence that the Firebending students learn to control fire was pointless. She could control fire just fine. Spending the dawn hours feeling the sun's warmth, or making a piece of paper keep from catching fire…bah. What did Jeong-Jeong know? He was just afraid of giving the students more power.

"Are you listening? Lupe?"

Her eyes flew open. Marshall was looking at her strangely. She was still stirring the ink, but the spoon was at an acute angle. "Sorry, were you talking?"

"Yeah." Was it just Lupe, or did Marshall sound…offended? She couldn't recall him sounding anything other than enthusiastic before now. "I was asking how your lessons are going."

"They're pretty good," Lupe replied. "I'm sorry I didn't hear you, I was practicing fire control. Jeong-Jeong says we should do it whenever we have a free moment, so—"

A sudden tremor cut Lupe off. The floor shook under her, rattling the shelves that lined the walls. One shelf near the ceiling, full of solidified pots of ink, dislodged from the wall. Ten or so pots of ink fell with the shelf, resulting in flying shards of pottery and huge splashes of ink.

"Look out!" Marshall and Lupe shouted at the same time, and both forward to push the other out of the way. They hit each other directly on the head, were then hit on the head again by several falling ink pots, and immediately passed out.

* * *

"Nnn…" This was…odd. Lupe felt fully rested. The pre-dawn wake-up-alarm sounded every day, even on weekends when there was no morning practice, yet Lupe felt like she had just gotten a full night's sleep. That was impossible, because she worked with Marshall every weekday until after dark. And it didn't feel like she was in her bed—there was a hard surface underneath her. Also, her blanket wasn't pulled up to her chin, and Lupe always did that before going to bed.

She opened her eyes. Marshall was lying unconscious on the floor just a foot away. Broken pots of ink littered the ground, and Lupe's uniform was ruined from being drenched in the stuff. She'd have to get rid of it, and request a new one. That would mean restricted privileges as punishment for ruining her uniform, half-rations, and detention. Unless she could convince Anjilly that the destruction of the uniform was an accident in which Lupe had no part.

In the meantime, despite being covered in ink, Lupe felt better than she had in a while. Amazing what a good night's sleep could do - even if it was spent on a hard floor in a puddle of ink without a blanket. She sat up, bits of ink flaking off her neck and hand as she did so, then looked around. The workroom looked like someone had put it in a box and shook it. What shelves still stood were empty, their contents strewn across the floor. All of Marshall's paintings were ruined. Her movement had displaced some of the objects around her. Thankfully, the fire and pot of ink from last night hadn't set fire to anything. Inks stained the floor, walls, and anything on the ground in a rainbow of colors.

"I'm gonna have to make more ink, aren't I," Lupe groaned. Marshall stirred when she spoke, and Lupe returned her attention to him. Half his face was covered in blue ink, and his rainbow gi looked unsalvageable. He blinked his eyes open, then looked at Lupe.

"Are you okay?" Marshall croaked.

"Yeah…yeah, I'm fine." Lupe rubbed one eye with her clean hand. "Do you know what happened?"

"Not a clue," Marshall yawned. He pushed himself to his knees, and stood up in one smooth motion. "How long were we asleep?"

"Probably a while. I feel really rested." Lupe stretched and rolled her shoulders. The movement helped her start to think. "Does your head hurt?"

"No. Yours?" Marshall offered Lupe a hand, which she accepted. As soon as she was on her feet she stretched again.

"My head feels fine. The pots must've been really light." Lupe checked the ground around her: pots of half-congealed ink and shattered pieces of pottery, scrolls and sheets of paper, paintbrushes and writing brushes were everywhere. Between her and the door was one of Marshall's yearbook paintings.

"All my work…" Marshall whispered. He sounded ready to cry. Lupe patted him on the shoulder as he sniffled.

"Sorry, Marshall. Let's get out of here and find out what happened."

"Okay." Marshall let Lupe lead him through the mess, weaving between the larger piles of junk. Lupe stepped on shards of pottery twice, but the thick leather soles of her uniform boots prevented injury. It felt like forever while she wove her way through the room, but once at the door Lupe realized it hadn't taken all that long.

Opening the door presented a momentary problem. Debris cluttered the opening and blocked the door's path. Some shoving moved enough out of the way that the door could open, allowing Lupe and Marshall to slip out.

The hallway outside was silent. Lupe frowned—at the very least, the Lemurs should be chattering just out of sight. There was a window fifty feet down the hall on the left; sunlight slanted in at a low angle. If the sun was out, the students should be audible as well; those not in classes would be talking and running in the hallways, plotting to get into the Staff Section. And the pets, often ignored by those without pets, should be roaming the halls freely, looking for scraps of attention.

"Where is everyone?" Marshall echoed Lupe's thoughts.

"Beats me. Come on." Lupe walked over to the window and leaned out. She realized it was one of the few windows that looked out onto the boiling lake; heat wafted onto her face from the bubbling waters while a light breeze ruffled her hair.

"See anything?" Marshall asked hopefully.

"No," Lupe sighed. "It looks on the lake. Let's go down to the yard. Maybe we can find someone there. Do you know the way from here?"

"Only the way to the classrooms," Marshall apologized. "We can get out from there, though, can't we?"

"That'll work fine," Lupe assured him. She rubbed a patch of dried black ink on her uniform with a finger, wondering what could be going on. A silent OFUA:TLA didn't sit well with her. There should be _noise_. Her fellow students were loud people. Where was the noise?!

Walking through the silent, sunlit halls struck Lupe as being even more unnerving than sneaking down those same halls in the dead of night. The emptiness was what had Lupe on edge. Every time she rounded a corner, she expected to run into someone. Small, occasional noises made Lupe jump. Marshall's footsteps were an eerie echo of Lupe's. Once she thought she saw a Lemur flitting across a hallway, but it was going in the opposite direction she and Marshall were, so she didn't investigate.

Goosebumps popped up along Lupe's arms, and the hairs at the back of her neck stood on end. Part of her was just waiting for someone to jump out and yell, "Surprise!" When Marshall grasped her wrist, she had to bite back a scream.

"Doing okay so far?" Lupe asked, her voice hoarse.

"So far," Marshall chuckled weakly. Lupe braved a smile at him and led on, weaving her way through the now-familiar hallways. Before long, they were at the huge double doors that led outside. Both doors were closed, but not locked.

"Shall we?" Lupe suggested. Marshall squeezed her wrist in response and let go. They each took a door. "One…two…"

On "three," they pushed with all their might. The doors swung open on well-oiled hinges with much less resistance than would be expected for twenty-foot monstrosities of iron and gold, dumping Lupe and Marshall onto their faces. Steps started right at the threshold, leading down and of course both of them tumbled to the foot of the stairs. Marshall turned his fall into a roll, landing on his feet. Lupe landed on her face, scraped the back of her hand against a rough patch, and bruised her left thigh.

"Lupe! Are you okay?!" Marshall exclaimed, rushing to her side.

"I…I'm all right…" Lupe winced. Her leg was throbbing, her face hurt, and she was pretty sure her hand was about to start bleeding. Stupid door. Just like Karen to have a door that looked heavy but wasn't. What was it, hollow? How did that even work? Shouldn't the strain make it collapse in on itself?

"It's Lupe! And Marshall!" someone shouted. Lupe looked up to see the entire student body of OFUA:TLA (sans the still-missing Mai4, of course) milling about the Cookie Plaza. Meep and [-] ran over, each holding their weapons.

"Lupe! Where have you been?" [-] asked. "Do you know what's going on?"

"All I know is that there was an earthquake last night that knocked me and Marshall out," Lupe replied. "And my uniform is ruined. What happened to you?"

"Well…after the earthquake, the guards didn't wake anyone up this morning," [-] explained. "Some of the Lemurs were able to unlock the dorms, or everyone would still be trapped in their rooms. Nobody knows where the Staff is. Some of us are thinking about investigating, but we don't know if the Lemurs will let us enter the Staff Section."

"Marshall! Lupe! Just the people I wanted to see!" Isabella Rose ran up. Sofia, Sunan, Lauphen, Freeranger, Zerkz, and Scarlet Johnson quickly followed. "I'm trying to get together a group to investigate the Staff Section. If Marshall comes with us, the Lemurs should let us pass!"

"Go into the Staff Section?" Lupe repeated. The thought gave her pause. It would be amazing to finally see what the Staff Section was like, but even with Marshall escorting them, wouldn't the Lemurs attack the students? "How many people are going?"

"Oh, all of the Zukomancers, Boomerang Babes, and Aanglers, plus the Mary Suki Club," Isabella Rose shrugged. "We figure it's a good chance to steal some time with our boys!"

"Absolutely not," Marshall frowned. "I'm not taking you into the Staff Section just so you can terrorize the canons."

"C'mon! We may never get another chance like this!" Isabella pleaded.

"Yeah! Let us get our guys!" Scarlet punctuated her words with a flourish of her sord, which bent in half like the unbelievably shitty jpeg artifact that it was. The blu – a visually painful shade of washed-out blue – forced everyone to avert their eyes.

"There is a greater chance of Aang and Katara breaking up than me taking you into the Staff Section so you can assault my friends." Marshall crossed his arms. "Look. I will take a group of five students into the Staff Section to investigate what is going on in there. But only five students I pick, and only if they will swear to the spirits that they're going to behave while there."

"Pick me!" Isabella and Scarlet said in unison. Marshall narrowed his eyes at them.

"I'll take Isabella, because going to the Staff Section was her idea first," he said. "And, as an Avatar, she should be useful. Sofia, Freeranger, you're both responsible people, you can come."

"Choose Lauphen," Lupe whispered.

"Lauphen." Marshall nodded to the girl. "You can never have too many Airbenders."

"Sure," Lauphen sighed. She glanced over at Meep and [-]. "Better than staying here."

"What about the fifth person?" Lupe asked.

"Really, Lupe? You have to ask?" Zerkz rolled his eyes. "It's you. Duh."

"Oh…" Lupe blushed. "Okay then. We…should we go?"

"Let's," Sofia agreed. She turned around to face the other students and cupped her hands around her mouth. Using an Airbending trick Gyatso had taught the Air Nomad students just the other day, she amplified her voice to the level of a megaphone. "EVERYBODY! MARSHALL IS TAKING ME, ISABELLA, LUPE, LAUPHEN, AND FREERANGER TO SEE WHAT'S GOING ON IN THE STAFF SECTION. STAY IN THE YARD AND DON'T DISTURB ANYTHING. WE'LL BE BACK AS SOON AS WE CAN."

"What? Why do you guys get to go?" Ashee Bieber complained.

"Because I picked them," Marshall retorted. "You'd just try to kill Suki or kiss Zuko."

"True."

"And that would be completely irresponsible, immature, and pointless," Marshall scowled. "Suki would defeat you without breaking a sweat, and if Mai didn't kill you, Zuko would throw you down a well. Then Anjilly would give you detention for a month." Ashee crossed her arms indignantly. "Don't even think glaring at me will change my mind. All you're doing is proving how immature you are. Has anyone ever mentioned how ridiculous you look with cotton candy stuck to your lips like that?"

Everyone stared at Marshall in shock. "Marshall?" Lupe took a half-step back. "Are you…feeling okay?"

"Huh? Of course I am. Why wouldn't I be?" Marshall smiled.

"You just…well, I mean, you…" Lupe stuttered. "The way you were acting just now…"

"Just now?" Marshall paused. "What do you mean?"

"It was kind of forceful," Isabella commented. "I didn't know you could be like that."

"Really? I was just trying to point out why she shouldn't go to the Staff Section with us," Marshall shrugged. "Should I have done it differently?"

"No, no, that was fine, it's just…surprising." Sofia tapped her chin. "We didn't think you could act like that. When did you get so strong-willed?"

"Beats me," Marshall rubbed his head. "Can we get going now? I'd like to get this over with. The canons probably won't be too happy with me taking students over to the Staff Section."

"Good idea." Freeranger stepped forward. Her uniform included a mottled grey cloak, the hood almost perpetually pulled up over her head. Half the students thought it looked cool—the other half thought it looked pretentious. Any requests made to Karen for a cloak of one's own was met with a refusal on the grounds of "But you're not a Ranger!" Whatever stupid children's series that referenced...

"Lead on, Mr. Arts," Sofia nodded to Marshall. He smiled, turned around, and started walking.

One long and creepy walk later, they were standing in front of the door to the Staff Section. There were no Lemurs guarding the door. Lupe pressed her ear to the door, hoping to hear signs of life, and got nothing.

"The doors are soundproof," Marshall explained. He shooed the students back a few feet, just in case, and grabbed the handles.

He opened the doors…to absolutely nothing. Just a plain hallway, leading into the Staff Section. "That was anticlimactic," Isabella noted. "Where are the Lemurs? The booby traps?"

"Why would we booby-trap our living quarters? That would be inconvenient!" Marshall waved the students forward. "Listen up. Don't wander off, and don't try to glomp anyone you see. If the Lemurs don't get you, I will."

"He's definitely acting differently," Lupe whispered. She glanced at Lauphen, who had been silent all through their walk. "Don't you think?" Lauphen grunted. Unsure of whether that was agreement or not, Lupe took the optimistic route and smiled. At least Lauphen had given an answer.

Marshall led the students down the hallway, his eyes constantly shifting from side to side. Isabella seemed oblivious to the tense atmosphere, but it was not lost on Freeranger and Sofia, who kept a sharp lookout to the sides and behind the group. Lauphen didn't look like she cared about what was going on. Lupe kept close to Marshall, who at least had the fighting skills to keep any monsters, angry master benders, or insane tea-deprived ex-PPC agents from getting at the students.

Five minutes in, Marshall came to an abrupt stop, and Lupe collided with his back before she could stop herself. "What is it?" she asked.

"Shh. Listen," he said.

Lupe focused on her hearing. There was nothing, only the eerie silence of…wait. Wait a minute. Was that…singing?

* * *

**DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUUUUUUN**

**Okay so. I would like to start by offering my sincere apologies to any and all readers who dislike how long it took for this chapter to come out. Caelum and I both had things going on - I'm working and getting an apartment with a friend, which is taking up plenty of time, and I might have to get a second job because my current job is running low on consistent hours for me. Caelum's had worries of her own to deal with, and we've both had generally busy lives. We do hope the next chapter won't take so long to come out, but we can't make any promises because - well - who can say what'll happen in life?**

**That said, thank you all for reading. I hope you enjoyed the chapter, and I hope you won't have to wait too long for another one. **


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